
Book 




i 



OUR Gi;eat Men 



OR THl 



LEADERS OF THE NATION. 



BY 

C E. BUTTOLPH. Pn. B. 



mL ^(^ ^^^ •'•'"^ w»»»-^ ^ ^ 



-^^ 



The Loomis National Library Association: 

No. 2 Cooper Union, No. 1114 Main St., 

New York. Richmond, Va, 

No. 364 Warash Avenue, 
Chicago, UL 

1S89. 



/■"■ 






COPYRIGHT BY 
Williams, Buttolphs and Johncton. 



PREFACE. 




MERICA makes her own rulers. Her great men 
come from the people, are of the people, and are 
citizens as well as rulers. Am such they should be 
more closely united to the masses than the rulers 
of other nations are to their subjects. The interests of one are the 
interests of ail. In legislating for their constituents they legislate 
for thcmseh^es. Good laws and the proper execution of them are 
advantageous to all alike. The men who have won a place at the 
front in the affairs of government are the servants of the people; 
they hold a great trust, and the eye of the Nation is upon them to 
see the trust is not betrayed. 

The object of this work is to draw into a closer relationship our 
great men and our people. Great questions of principle can be 
better known by a study of the men who advocate those principles. 
In this volume the author has endeavored to give impartial 
biographical sketches, together with extracts from their best 
speeches, of the leaders of the Nation. A knowledge of our lead- 
ers is indispensable to the intelligent American citizen, while to 
the young — those who are just becoming interested in the affairs of 
government, who are just on the threshold of active citizenship— 
this knowledge is especially important. 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

The American people can truly be proud of their leaders. They 
are not without faults ; for who are faultless ? But no other nation 
can produce more able statesmen. 

Trusting this work will serve the purpose for which it was 
intended, and that its readers will glean some few grains of useful 
information, we leave it with the people. 

C. E. BUTTOLPH. 

Januaey 1, 1887. 




INDEX 



PAGE 

1. Bakbouk, Johk S Virginia 701 

2. Barksdale, Ethelbeht Mississippi 674 

3. Bayakd, Thomas F Ddaware 288 

4. Bayne, Thomas M Pennsylvania 623 

5. Beck, James B Kentucky 31 

6. Berry, James H Arlcansas 602 

7. Blackburn, J. C. S Kentucky 645 

8. Blaine, James G Maine 373 

9. Blanchard, Newton C Louisiana 225 

10. Bland, Richard P Missouri 310 

11. Blount, James H Oeor^ia 694 

12. Bbago, Edward S Wisconsin 384 

13. Breckinridge, Clifton R Arkansas 365 

14. Breckinridge, William P. C Kentucky 272 

15. Brown, Joseph E Georgia 246 

16. Browne, Thomas M Lidiana 641 

17. Buck, John H Connecticut 643 

18. Burrows, Julius C Michigan 660 

19. Butler, Matthew C South Carolina 178 

20. Butterworth, Benjamin Ohio 634 

21. Cabell, George C Virginia 563 

22. Caldwell, Andrew J Tennessee 664 

23. Call, Wilkinson Florida 670 

24. Cannon, Joseph G Illinois 639 

25. Cameron, James D Pennsylvania 633 

26. Carlisle, John G Kentucky 455 

27. Cleveland, Grover New York 38 

28. Cockrell, Francis M Missouri 684 

/ (a) 



b INDEX. 

FAOB 

29. Coke, Eichaed Texas 497 

30. Colquitt, Alfred H Georgia 108 

31. Conger, Omar D Michigan 101 

32. Cox, William E North Carolina 566 

33. Crisp, Charles F Georgia 398 

34. CuTCHEOK, Byboh M Michigan 648 

35. Daniel, Johit "W Virginia 599 

36. DiBBLi, Samuel Souih Carolina 696 

37. Dingley, Nelson Maine 222 

38. DocKERY, Alexander M Missouri 662 

39. Dunn, Poindexter Arkansas 424 

40. Edmunds, George F Vermont 576 

41. EusTis, James B Louisiana 608 

42. EvARTS, William M New York 617 

43. FiNDLAY, JouN V. L Maryland 560 

44. George, James Z Mississippi 280 

45. Gibson, Charles H Maryland 477 

46. Gibson, Eandall L Louisiana 689 

47. GoFF, Nathan, Jr West Virginia 406 

48. Gorman, Arthur P Maryland 484 

49. Gray, Horace Massachusetts 638 

50. Green, Wharton J North Carolina 671 

61. Hammond, Nathaniel J Georgia 595 

52. Hampton, Wade South Carolina 93 

53. Harris, Isham G Tennessee ^12 

54. Hemphill, John J South Carolina 676 

55. Henley, Barclay California 681 

56. Herbert, Hilery A Alabama 327 

57. Hewitt, Abram S New York 427 , 

58. Hill, David B New York 4: 

59. HiscocK, Frank New York 61 

60. Hoar, George F Massachusetts 18 

61. HoLMAN, William S Indiana 261 

62. Ingalls, John J Kansas 159 

63. Johnston, James T Indiana 656 \ 



INDEX. 7 

PAGE 

64. Kelly, Weluam D Pennsylvania 650 

65. K£NNA, James E West Virginia 699 

66. LA2IAB, L. Q. C Mississippi 128 

67. Logan, John A Illinois 314 

68. LoNO, John D Massachtisetts 148 

69. Matthews, Stanley Ohio 625 

70. Maxjey, Samcel B Texas 703 

71. McKinley, William, Jr Ohio 629 

72. McMiLLiN, Benton Tennessee 672 

73. Mitchell, John H Oregon 535 

74. Morgan, John T ,-l/a6a7?ia 387 

75. MoREisoN, William R Illinois 343 

76. Norwood, Thomas B Georgia 401 

77. Gates, William C Alabama 63 

78. O'Neill, John J Missouri 690 

79. Puoh, James L Alabama 330 

80. Platt, Orvill II Connecticut 636 

81. Perkins, Bishop II Kansas 654 

82. Randall, Samuel J Pennsylmnia 539 

83. Ransom, Matt W North Carolina 605 

84. Reagan, John H Tczas 112 

85. Reed, Thomas B Maine 408 

86. Rkid, James W Norih Carolina. 667 

87. Rice, William W Massachusetts 658 

88. Richardson, James D Tennessee 669 

89. Rogers, John H Arkansas 573 

90. Sherman, John Ohio 430 

91. Spoonek, John C Wisconsin 340 

92. Springer, William M Illinois 468 

93. Stanford, Leland California 692 

94. St. Martin, Louis Louisiana 698 

95. Taylor, Ezra B Ohio 631 

96. Teller, Henry M Colorado 395 

97. Thurman, Allen G Ohio 13 

98. ThrocK-Mobton, James W Texas 191 



8 INDEX. 




FAOB 



99. Tillman, Geoege D South Carolina 666 

100. TowNSEND, Richard W Illiiiois 481 

101. Tucker, John E Virginia 686 

102. Turner, Henry G Georgia 368 

103. Vance, Zebulon B North Carolina, 201 

104. Van Eaton, Henry S Mississippi 678 

105. Vest, George G Missouri 490 

106. VooRHEES, Daniel W Indiana 465 

107. Waite, Morrison R Ohio 626 

108. Walthall, E. C Mississippi 471 

109. Weaver, James B ; Iowa 627 

110. Wellborn, Olin Texas 680 

111. Wheeler, Joseph Alabama 688 

112. Willis, Albert S Kentucky 487 

113. WoLFORD, Frank L Kentucky 186 



List of Illustrations. 



1. CAPiToii AT Washington, 

2. Allen G. Thukman, 

3. Grover Cleveland, 

4. Wade Hampton, . 

5. Lucirs Q. C. La>la.r, 

6. John J. Ingalls, . 

7. Zebulon B. Vance, . 

8. Joseph E. Brown, 

9. Thomas F. Bayard, 

10. James L. Pugh, 

11. James Q. Blaine, 

12. David B. Hill, 

13. John G. Carlisle, 

14. Richard Coke, 

15. Samuel J. Randall, 

16. George F. Edmunds, 

17. IsHAM G. Harris, 



TAQX 

Frontispiece 
12 
39 
92 
129 
. 158 
200 
. 247 
289 
. 331 
372 
. 412 
454 
. 496 
638 
. 577 
613 



(9) 



To honor God, to benefit mankind, 

To serve with lofty gifts the lowly needs 

Of the poor race for which the God-man died, 

And do it all for love— oh this is great I 

And he who does this will achieve a name 

Not only great but good. 

—Holland. 



(10) 




A2LiL3E3^i ©. 



Hon. ALLEN G.THURMAN. 




LLEX G. THURMAX, or "The Old 
Roman," as he is commonly known among 
his political friends, was born in Lynch- 
burg, Virginia, November 13th, 1813. 

Rev. P. Thurnian was his father, and hi.s mother 
was the only daughter of Colonel Xathaniel Allen, and 
sister of the late ex-Governor William Allen, of Ohio. 
His parents removed from Lynchburg to Chillicothe, 
Ohio, in 1819, and there Allen G. was educated, residing 
there till he removed to Columbus, Ohio, his present 
home. 

He studied law with his uncle, \A'illiam Allen, then a 
United States Senator, and subsequently with Xoah H. 
Swayne, afterward an Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. He was admitted to the 
Bar in 1835, and continued his practice for several years. 

In 1844 he married Mary Drew, daughter of Walter 
Drew, of Fayette County, Kentucky. 

He was elected, in 1844, to the Twenty-ninth Con- 
gress, and served one term. While serving in the 
Twenty-ninth Congress he voted, with other Northern 
Democrats, for the " Wilmot Proviso;" and, in the many 
exciting questions which arose during that Congress, he 

(13) 



14 OUE GREAT MEN. 

voted for and advocated what he believed would con- 
duce to the Nation's welfare. He resumed the practice 
of law after his term exj^ired. In 1851 he was elected a 
Judge of the Suj^reme Court of Ohio. He was Chief 
Justice of that court during two years of his term. After 
leaving the Supreme Bench he again resumed the prac- 
tice of law at Columbus, Ohio, and was engaged as counsel 
in the Supreme Court in many of the principal cases 
which came before it. 

His reputation as a sound lawyer and jurist was, to 
a great extent, founded upon the reports containing his 
decisions during the five years he was Judge of the 
Supreme Court uf Ohio; and his opinions on important 
legal questions were sought for and relied upon by many 
attorneys practicing in the State. He has always been a 
laborious student, and in the thorough preparations of his 
cases but few men excelled him. As a politician he has 
always been a Democrat and a great leader of his party. 

In 1867 he was presented by the party of his State as 
a candidate for the Governorship of Ohio. The cam- 
paign was one of the liveliest ever known in the State. 
The Legislature had proposed a "Negro Suifrage" 
amendment to the Constitution of the State, and this 
was before the people. Judge Thurman entered heartily 
into the canvass. His opponent was Rutherford B. 
Hayes, afterward President of the United States. The 
year before, the Republicans had carried Ohio by forty- 
three thousand majority. Judge Thurman was beaten 
by two thousand nine hundred and eighty- three majority. 
The "Negro Suffrage" amendment was defeated by over 
fifty thousand majority, and the Democrats carried the 



ALLEN G. THURMAX. 15 

Legislature by a large majority. He was nominated for 
United States Senator, and elected in January, 1868, to 
take the place of Benjamin F. Wade, a Republican. 

Senator Thurman took the oath of office March 4th, 
1869. He belonjired to the minority, and a yery small 
minority, there being only eleyen Democrats then in 
the Senate. He took position as a leader at once. As a 
debater he was fearless, with, perhaps, no man his equal 
on the floor of the Senate. He made his work count; 
and, while the South was not yet out of the hands of the 
"carpet-baggers," he thundered his eloquence against 
military rule. 

In 1873 William Allen, his uncle, was nominated for 
the Governorship of Ohio. Senator Thurman, by his 
active part in the State campaign of that year, succeeded 
in seeing Mr. Allen elected Governor by a few hundred 
majority. The Legislature was again carried by the 
Democrats, and Mr. Thurman was re-elected United 
States Senator. 

The tidal wave of 1874 made the Xational House of 
Representatives Democratic, and from that time Thur- 
man, perhaps, took a more active part than ever as the 
head of the minority in the Senate. He was a candidate 
for the nomination for the Presidency in 1876, again in 
1880, and again in 1884. WTiile not nominated, he has 
proved the truth of the adage that statesmanship and 
leadership, in a great political party, seldom win the 
highest laurels. 

In 1879, he who had entered the Senate, and became 
the leader of a small minority, then became the leader of 
a majority. The Senate became Democratic, and he 



16 OUR GREAT MEN. 

was elected President ])ro fonpore of that body. At the 
close of his term, March 4th, 1881, he returned to Colum- 
bus, Ohio, and resumed the i^ractice of law. 

Mr. Thurman's official life may be over, but as a leader 
and as a great man but few have been his equal; and, 
while his record may be made, he will ever be remem- 
bered as one of the men who stood at the helm of State 
when the Xation was tossed in the tempest of reconstruc- 
tion, and never failed in his duty to the Constitution or 
to the people. 

In a speech in the Senate, on the tenure of office of the 
President jjro tempore of the Senate, Mr. Thurman said : 

"I said that thirty-five years ago I heard this question 
discussed; discussed by great men, and discussed in the 
Senate of the United States. I was not in the Senate. 
I was too young, or the people had not discovered my 
merits then. It was on the occasion of the death of Gen- 
eral Harrison, and the question was whether Mr. Tyler 
had become President of the United States. When a 
motion was made in the Senate to appoint a commit- 
tee — the usual motion on the commencement of the ses- 
sion — 'to wait upon the President of the United States 
and inform him that both Houses of Congress had assem- 
bled, and were ready to receive any communication that 
he might be pleased to make,' a Senator from Ohio moved 
to amend, instead of saying ' the President of the United 
States,' by saying 'the Vice-President of the United 
States acting as President.' That gave rise to a rery 
interesting discussion; and the result of that discussion 
was, I believe, a vote, by a large majority, to retain the 
resolution in its original form, upon the ground that 



ALLEN G. THURMAX. 17 

upon the death of the President the Vice-President be- 
came actually President of the United States. It was 
argued in support of the amendment that there was a dis- 
tinction between the case of the death of the President 
and a temporary disability, and that it could not be said 
that the Vice-President became President of the United 
States where the actual President was only under tem- 
porary disability, because that would be to have two 
Presidents of the United States at one and the same 
time. It is precisely the same argument that the Sen- 
ator from New York now suggests. It was said then 
that this clause in regard to the powers and duties devolv- 
ing on the Vice-President is precisely the same in 
respect to death or to inability to servo. Let me turn to 
that clause : 

" ' In case of the removal of the President from office, 
or of his death, resignation or inability to discharge 
the })()wers and duties of the said office, the same shall 
devolve on the A'ice-Presidcnt, and the Congress may 
by law [)rovide for the case of removal, death, resignation 
or inability, both of the President and Vice-President, 
declaring what officer shall then act as President, and 
such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be 
removed, or a President shall be elected.' 

"They are all put in the same clause, and the lan- 
guage is 'what officer shall then act as President.' I am 
speaking now from recollection, for I do not think I have 
read that debate for many years; but it made a great 
impression on my young mind at that time. The opin- 
ion expressed by leading Senators, who took part in that 
debate, was that in the case of death it is plain, and in 



18 OUR GREAT MEX. 

the case of removal from office it is j^lain, and in the case 
of resignation it is plain ; all those cases put an end to 
the official character of the President; and it was only 
in case of his inability to serve (it might be from insan- 
ity, or from imprisonment, or from some temporary 
cause — sickness a Senator suggests, and that might well 
be) that there could be any question. The weight of 
opinion, as I recollect it, expressed then, was that in 
such a case of inability, as in case of captivity and im- 
prisonment — if, for instance, ]Mr. Lincoln had been cap- 
tured and imprisoned by the Confederates during the 
late civil war, his j^owers would have been in abeyance 
during that captivity, and the Vice-President for the time 
being would have been the President of the United States ; 
and no order given by Mr. Lincoln from his dungeon in 
a Southern State, if he had been in one, or in some for- 
tress there, could be obeyed as the order of the Pres- 
ident of the United States ; but the powers of the real 
President being in abeyance, by reason of imprisonment 
or inability to discharge his duties, the Vice-President 
for the time being would have been the President of 
the United States. 

" I do not find much light on this question from 
the illustration of mayors of cities and corporate vil- 
lages in the State of Indiana or the State of Ohio. It 
seems to me that it is a question which depends on the 
Constitution of the United States, and is quite irre- 
spective of any of those municipal laws to which the Sen- 
ator has referred. I did not rise, however, to argue that 
question, but only to say that I, for one, dissent from 
the views expressed by the Senator from Indiana in the 



ALLEN G. THUEMAX. 19 

first remarks which he submitted this morning on this 
question. I think when the office devolves on the Pres- 
ident pro tempore he ceases to be Senator, becomes 
President, and liohls the office of President until the 
expiration of the term, or until another President is 
elected. 1 may be wrong about it ; I only state my 
opinion. That !« my judgment, because I can not in any 
way reconcile it to my mind that a man can at one and 
the same time discharge the duties of President of the 
United States and be a Senator in Congress, entitled to 
take a seat on this fluor, and to participate in our delib- 
erations with all the powers of a Senator; nor can I 
reconcile it U) myself to say that any act of Congress can 
deprive a State of one-half of its representation on this 
floor by making a Senator President of the United States, 
and at the same time leaving him a Senator in name but 
without power to act as Senator. That is all that I 
desire to say upon that branch of the subject. 

''Upon thccpiestion that is immediately before the Sen- 
ate, and as to which I have said that I was not entirely 
clear, bill that the impression «»f my mind was in favor 
of the views of the minority of the committoo. T wish 
to say a very few words indeed. 

'•'The Senate shall choose their other officers, and 
also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice- 
President, or whrn he shall exercise the office of Presi- 
dent of the United States.' 

"I wish the attention of the Senator from Indiana for 
one moment. The Senator says that the power conferred 
ia this clause is precisely the same in respect to the Pres- 
ident of the Senate that it is in res])ect to 'other nffi- 



20 OUR GREAT MEN. 

cers,' and that if it is competent for the Senate to 
remove its Secretary, or its Chief Clerk, or its Sergeant- 
at-Arms, it follows necessarily that it has a like power to 
remove the President j)ro tempore. I submit to him that 
he is entirelv mistaken in that. There is not one word in 
this clause that, by any implication whatever, lixes the 
duration of the oflSce of any officer of the Senate, except 
the President ])ro temj)ore. There is not one word in the 
clause which, either exi:)ressly or by any implication, fixes 
the term of office of the Secretary of the Senate, of the 
Chief Clerk of the Senate, of the Sergeant-at^Arms, or 
of any of those officers who are strictly officers of the 
Senate. But when you cume to the President fro tempore^ 
there are most j) regnant words that do intimate, that do 
raise a fjiir implication, if they do not express it in fact, 
that he is to hold during the entire absence of the Vice- 
President; and, if that absence be caused by death, as in 
the case now before us, that then he must continue to 
hold as long as ho is a member of the body, unless, in 
the meantime, another Vice-President has been chosen. 
Let us see liou- this matter is : 

'"The Vice-President of the United States shall be 
President of the Senate, but shall have no vote,' etc. 
'"The Senate shall choose their other officers.' 
"Wliy was the clause, 'the Senate shall choose their 
other officers,' put in at all? The reason of it is very 
obvious. You will find a like provision in regard to the 
House of Representatives. It was to give each body the 
absolute power to choose its own officers. Just for the 
same reason that each House is made the sole judge of 
the election, returns, and qualifications of its own mem- 



ALLEX G. THURMAX. 21 

bers, so the choice of its own immediate servants is vested 
in each House; and it is to prevent the choice of officers 
of the Senate, or officers of the House, being made a sub- 
ject-matter of legislation, being governed by law, or being 
conferred upcjn any executive authority. It is for that 
reason alone that the clause is put here that 'the Senate 
shall choose their other officers.' Then the Constitution 
goes (Ml and says: 'And also a President ^>ro temjiore, in 
the absence of the Vice-President, or when h(i shall exor- 
cise the office of President of the United States.' 

"If the Senator from Indiana is riirht, whv was ni»t 
this clause condensed so as to sav, 'the Senate shall choose 
their other officers, and, when necessar)', a President prr? 
1em]>or('V Why was it not put in those few words? 
A\'lierr was the necessity of jiutting in words that import 
a term for which that President is to hold his office? If 
the Senator from Indiana and the majority t)f the com- 
mittee nvc correct, the whole object wouUl have been 
accom[)lished by saying: 'The Senate shall choose their 
other officers, and also a President ^/r(> tempore when nec- 
essary.' That would have left him in the i>ower of the 
Senate. But, instead of saying in those few words that 
the Senate should have the power to elect a President pro 
tempore^ they go on to say, 'and a President pro tempore 
in the absence of the Vice-President ; ' and that is not all: 
' Or when he shall exercise the office of President of the 
United States.' 

"It does look as if the plain import of this language 
was that there is to be such an officer, and it is admitted 
he is an officer; for, if he is not, he could not become 
President under the act of 1792, and that act would be 



22 OUR GREAT MEN. 

unconstitutional. There is to be such an officer as a Pres- 
ident ]^ro tempore of the Senate, and that officer is elected 
by an absence of the Vice-President, and if that absence 
is to be continuous, as in the case of his becoming Presi- 
dent of the United States, upon the death, resignation, 
or removal from office of the President, then that Senator, 
thus President j'ro tempore^ is to hold for the whole 
term. 

"That is the natural import of this language, as it 
seems to me upon fiirtlier reflection. In view of the lan- 
guage of the Constitution, and in view of the fact that it 
seems to have been the idea of the framers of the Consti- 
tution that the presiding officer of this body should have 
a certain independent status, a certain i^crmanency of ten- 
ure of office, and with the strong reasons which have been 
given favoring this permanency of tenure, I can not 
bring myself ultimately to the conclusion that this is an 
office held (hirante heneplacito; that we are to turn our 
presiding officer out one day and put somebody else in ; 
and that, owing to some casual change of majority, or 
change of feeling in the Senate, we arc to reverse the 
thing next day and re-instate the old officer. I know 
that there is very little to be gained by supposing 
extreme cases. There is very little to be gained by sup- 
j)Osing that the Senate would do so impro2:)er a thing; 
and yet it might be done in times of high i)arty excite- 
ment. 

"Then, I think, Mr. President, that there is great 
force in what was said by the Senator from Florida. If 
you say that the President pro tempore can be changed at 
the will of the Senate, and the House of Representatives 



ALLEN G. THURMAX. 23 

should take the opposite view of it, and the office of Pres- 
ident of the United States shouhl devolve on the Presi- 
dent of the Senate, you might have a conflict between 
the two Houses as to who was the Chief Executive 
Magistrate. If, for instance, we were to change our Pres- 
ident pro tempore, elect some one else in his stead, and 
(this not being a matter of the special privileges of the 
Senate, upon which our judgment is conclusive — for upon 
it depends who shall be President of the United States) 
if the House of llej)resentatives should t<ike the opposite 
view and say: 'You have improperly elected a man; 
vou have violated the Constitution ]»v electin'r a man 
when there was no vacancy, and when you had no power 
to change your presiding officer,' we can see that there 
would be a conflict immediately between the two Houses. 
That may be an extreme case, too — that is to say, a case 
not very likely to occur — and yet it is a case so likely to 
occur that it has been thought necessary to provide bv 
law for the event of the death of both the President and 
Vice-President of the United States; and it is provided 
for in the Constitution also. The Constitution contem- 
plates that both President and Vice-President may die, 
or their offices become vacant, and it requires Congress to 
provide for such a contingency, and Congress has 
provided for it; so that it is not reasoning from extreme 
cases, or improbable hypotheses, to say such a case may 
arise ; and, seeing that it may arise, it is possible there 
may be this conflict between the two Houses, if the 
opinion advocated by the majority of the committee shall 
prevail. The other opinion, that which makes the office 
of President pro tempore permanent, as long as the Vice- 



24 OUR GREAT MEN. 

President is absent, removes any possibility of danger of 
a conflict." 

On the subject of deputy marshals Mr. Thurman 
said : 

" I think it is an extraordinary power where the mar- 
shal can arrest a man without a warrant, not because of 
any oifense committed in his sight, but because somebody 
told him that he saw the offense committed. I think it 
is an extraordinary power wlion lie can take a judge of 
election off his bench, and more than one, and put a stop 
to the election if the marshal sees fit. I think those are 
extraordinary powers. I think it is not necessary to 
discuss the question of the extraordinary powers that are 
conferred by that election law and the appointment of 
these deputy marshals. 

" 1 only rose for the purpose of saying that while this 
bill will not interfere in the whole three hundred and 
sixty-five days in the year, while by no possibility can 
it interfere, it does mean that the marshals who are to 
exerci.se the })owers provided in the election laws shall 
be appointed in the manner provided in this bill. 

•'^Ir. Pi-esident, having said that much, I want to say 
a word in reply to some observations made by my friend 
from Indiana. I thought with him, I think still, not- 
withstanding the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, that our election laws providing for these 
supervisors and deputy marshals are unconstitutional 
laws. I have not denied that Congress might pass 
laws in regard to the election of members of Congress, 
and laws in regard to the election of electors of Presi- 
dent and Vice-President; but I do maintain, and shall 



ALLEX G. THURMAX. 25 

maintain as long as I live, that such laws must be framed 
so as not to interfere with the election of State officers, 
with elections that it belongs to the State alone to reg- 
ulate; and because our laws do interfere with State elec- 
tions, because they do interfere with elections that belong 
exclusively to the States, I hold that they are uneonsti- 
tional. 'Then,' says the Senator from Indiana, 'how can 
you vote fur this bill ?' 

" In the first place, I can tell the Senator, that there 
is nothing in the bill that makes it apply to an election 
where there wuuld be any unconstitutional interference 
with that election. Xon constat because this bill passes 
that the laws will remain precisely as they are inter- 
fering with State elections. Suppose the laws did nut 
interfere with State elections; suppose our laws as tliev 
now stand on the statute-book in no wise interfered with 
State elections, could any body then say that this bill 
was unconstitutional? Certainlv not. 

"But this bill stands by itself. It does not coumiit 
itself to any unconstitutional interference with elections; 
but suppose it be said ' that is rather too refined, that 
is splittinix hairs and getting away from the real sub- 
stance of the thing, for this is in effect an amendment to 
the election laws.' Suppose that is so; still it is admis- 
sible to vote for it, even believing those laws to be un- 
constitutional, and why ? Because a vote for this bill is 
not a vote to support those laws. If there is an uncon- 
stitutional law on the statute-book, one for which I would 
not vote, and a proposition is made to modify that law 
so as to make it either less unconstitutional or less 
oppressive, or less unjust, or less impolitic, I can vote 



26 OUR GEEAT MEN. 

for the modification without sanctioning the hxw; I can 
vote for this modification to that law, if it be considered 
a modification to it, without in the slightest degree sanc- 
tioning the law to which it is a modification." 

In a speech on the tariff, in the Forty-sixth Congress, 
Mr. Thurman said : 

" Mr. President, it is not my purj^ose to say a word 
ujion the general subject of the tariff; but I wish to 
make a suggestion or two for the consideration of my 
friends who are in favor of this bill, and are opposed to 
the substitute of the Senator from Arkansas. 

" I wish first to call attention to this fact: The bill of 
the Senator from Connecticut has the suj^port of a multi- 
tude of i^etitions ; somebody has called them machine 
petitions, because they are all, I believe, in the very same 
words, printed and sent to us, and as far as my observa- 
tion goes — and I think I am quite right in that — every 
one of these petitions comes from a particular interest in 
this country — the manufacturing interest. If there has 
been a petition in favor of the measure presented to the 
Senate from anybody engaged in agriculture, or anybody 
engaged in navigation, or anybody engaged in merchan- 
dise, or anybody engaged in ^professional pursuits, it has 
wholly escaped ni}^ observation. Therefore, Mr. Presi- 
dent, it has been supposed b}^ some that those who have 
thus petitioned for the adoption of this bill, and who are 
themselves largely protected by the tariff laws, regard 
this measure as an extension of the present law, unal- 
tered for at least nineteen months, and more than that, 
because after the rej^ort will come it will have to be dis- 
cussed — two years or more. Well, sir, two years' further 



ALLEN G. THUEMAX. 27 

extension of the tariff law precisely as it exists might be 
a very great boon to them; but, on the other hand, it 
might be a thing which the people of this country would 
not willingly consent to. 

**♦♦*» 

" If Mr. Mason's opinion is correct, we create nine 
offices iit this session of Congress, and provide that the 
President shall fill them by nominations to the Senate ; 
and they shall be api)uinted upon his nomination, by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate. If he does 
not make the nominations during the session, he can not 
do it in the recess ; if we do not confirm them, he can not 
appoint them during the recess ; if we do confirm them, 
and they decline to accept the office, so that the office is 
never filled by them, then he can not appoint during the 
recess. 

"Now, what are you going to ask of the President, 
with, perhaps, only twenty-four hours to consider it? 
You pass this bill, it gets through both Houses of Con- 
gress, and when will you get it through ? If you get it 
through at the end of next week you will be very for- 
tunate. If it goes to the President he has ten days to 
consider it. How much time has he to consider the bill, 
and approve the bill, and find the proper nine men? He 
will not have twenty-four hours probably, and are twenty- 
four hours sufficient to enable him to make nominations, 
and for the Senate to consider those nominations upon a 
great subject like this? And then, if we do not confirm 
them, and the Senate adjourn, there is an end of the 
power to appoint until next winter. If you do confirm 
them, and they decline to accept the office, then there 



28 OUR GREAT MEN. 

is an end of the power to appoint them until next 

winter. 

"Is it wise in us to run any such risk as that near 
the close of the session ? Is it not very much better 
that we should appoint a commission ourselves, such a 
commission as requires no appointment by the President, 
requires no confirmation by the Senate, that gives to the 
House of Representatives, the great power in the Grov- 
ernment upon whom devolves the duty of inaugurating 
all bills for raising revenue its fair share in the selection 
of these men, than that we should give it all to the Pres- 
ident of the United States by and with the advice and 
consent of the Senate ? All bills for raising the revenue 
are to originate in the House of Representatives ; but 
this bill gives to the House of Representatives not one 
iota of power in respect to the appointment of these com- 
missioners, no will of its own, no choice of its own, 
nothing whatsoever; confers it all on the President and 
on the Senate, neither of whom can inaugurate a reve- 
nue bill. Do you think that bill will go through the 
House of Representatives? Although I have no right 
to say it will not, for that would not be parliamentary, I 
must be permitted to doubt it extremely ; and I must be 
permitted to doubt whether this bill, if it passes into a 
law at this session, will ever be executed at all; but it 
may go over until next session. So much the better for 
some. That would postpone the report on the tariff for 
nine or ten months longer perhaps. 

"We get rid of these difficulties, every one of them, 
by adopting the substitute of the Senator from Arkansas, 
or something of that nature. 'But,' says my friend from 



ALLEN G. THUKMAN. 29 

Delaware, ' I want a commission that is raised above 
party.' Why, sir, can we have a commission on a great 
question of public interest without that influence, whether 
it is called party politics or party policy ? Can you ever 
have such a question decided by men who have no opin- 
ions one way or the other ? Can you find them ? I have 
heard of jurors that must have no opinion at all. A 
judge said once, 'The only way I can get a jury that has 
no opinion is to get one composed of men that can not 
read, and then have men that can not hear, then, possi- 
bly, I might get a jury that had never heard anything 
about the subject, and have perfectly independent and 
blank-minded men?' No, Mr. President, do not do that. 
The way you arrive at sound conclusions is by a conflict 
of ideas, and where there are conflicting interests it is 
the conflict of ideas on the part of those whose opinions 
do conflict that finally brings you to the truth, or to a 
compromise between the conflicting interests. That is all 
you can do. There never was a tariif bill passed, and 
never will be, that will not be a conflict between conflict- 
ing interests. There never was, and there never will be, 
perhaps it might be said that there never ought to be, 
because every interest is equally entitled to the care and 
kindness of the Government. Do we not have to decide 
in the end? Suppose you have your commission, and 
they make their report here, do not then the Senate and 
House of Representatives have to decide, and are not we 
just as much partisans as this joint committee that the 
Senator from Arkansas proposes shall be appointed? 
Every bit as much so. In the end, whatever be the con- 
flicts between the agricultural interest and the interests 



30 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of all people who are engaged in any one of these pur- 
suits, how are you getting rid of special interests, or 
party interests, if you call them so, by having a commis- 
sion appointed by the President, when ultimately it has 
to lay its work before Congress for consideration ? 

" Sir, it does not seem to me, with the highest possi- 
ble respect for my friend who introduced this bill, for 
the Senator from Delaware who advocates it, for the 
majority of his committee that reported it, that the bill, 
for the reasons I have stated, will be found to be an 
impracticable measure, and have the effect if passed, 
and no other effect in the world, but to sustain the pres- 
ent tariff unaltered for two years, or two years and 
a half. I shall, therefore, support the substitute." 




•r 



Hon. JAMES B. BECK, 

OF KENTUCKY. 



m 



v^r^5|^p^|AMES B. BECK, one of the most prom- 
v^5Si[?^,^il inent members of the United States Senate, 
and a general favorite in Kentucky, is of 
Scotch nativity. He was born in Diim- 
friesshirc, Scotland, February 13th, 1822. He received 
a thorough academic education before leaving Scotland. 

After coming to this country he read law privately 
for two years, and then attended lectures at the Tran- 
sylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky, where he 
graduated in the spring of 1846. He then settled down 
to the practice of his ^^rofession in Lexington. He 
formed a copartnership with John C. Breckinridge, which 
lasted until the war broke out. Mr. Breckinridge then 
joined the Confederates, and Mr. Beck remained at 
home to attend to the interests of his clients. 

He was elected a Representative to the Fortieth, 
Forty-first, Forty-second and Forty-third Congresses. 
Declining a re-election to the House of Representatives, 
he was elected to the United States Senate, and took his 
seat in March of 1877. In 1882 he was re-elected. 

With Mr. Beck's history as a public man the country 
is familiar. He carried into public life the same indom- 

(31) 



32 OUR GREAT MEN. 

itable will and indefatigable industry that characterized 
him in j^rivate life. As Congressman and Senator he 
has made a reputation that few have equaled. The 
State of his adojDtion has had reason to be proud of him 
and his fame. 

We submit some remarks by Mr. Beck on the amend- 
ments to the Postal Appropriation Bill : 

" When the Government of the United States under- 
takes to protect any class of men, and to deny to any 
other class the right to buy what they want in the coun- 
try where they have been obliged to sell in competition 
Avitli the so-called paupers of the world in the foreign 
markets, to which they are compelled to go, and then 
say that they shall not buy what they need there, because 
the Government proposes to protect other j^eople in 
America, it is unjust to and discriminating against its 
own people. I insist it is the duty of the Government 
of the United States to see to it that the money it collects 
shall be only what is required for its own purposes, and 
shall not be taken from ibe class to enrich another. In 
other words, if the man from Dakota sells wheat that he 
only realizes sixty cents a bushel for when sold in Liver- 
pool, and receives, a thousand dollars for it, and is offered 
for that thousand dollars clothes and blankets needed for 
himself and his family — things that he must have to keep 
his family warm in that rigorous climate — I insist that the 
men in New England shall not be allowed to compel him 
to pay two thousand dollars for these things here ; yet 
the Government of the United States, in order to enrich 
home manufacturers, says to the exporter, ' You shall not 
buy with the thousand dollars you get for your wheat 



JAMES B. BECK. 33 

what vou are offered in the market where you are obliged 
to sell, but you shall bring your money home, and you 
shall pay two thousand dollars for those same things 
to New England or Pennsylvania manufacturers.' I 
insist that is unjust, if revenue is not the object; and I 
insist that it is the duty of the United States, if it under- 
takes to interfere with the trade of its private citizens, 
and to compel those who sell abroad to enrich New^ 
Enjrland or Pennsylvania manufacturers by our laws, to 
see to it that the people the Government })rofesses to 
protect are protected ; if we make ourselves the trustees 
we ought to carry out the trust to its legitimate conse- 
quence. Instead of that, under our present laws, we 
deny the right of a man who sells his wheat in the 
cheapest market, and in competition with the so-called 
paupers of the world, to buy for a thousand dollars what 
is offered him, and require him to pay two thousand dol- 
lars for them in Pennsylvania or New England, and it 
all goes to men who have very likely bought machinery 
in England or Germany or France, men who send to 
Canada or to Italy or to Hungary, or the other markets 
of the world, and hire the cheapest labor they can get. 
* * * * * The Government gives that 
money to the men who buy foreign machinery, who hire 
the cheapest people, who import them from Hungary, 
Italy, Canada, anj^where. Men who come here with 
their cheap clothes on their backs, many of whom go to 
Canada as soon as they make money enough to go home. 
About three-fourths, as I think the records will show, of 
the operatives in factories in parts of New England, and 
especially in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, are Cana- 



34 OUE GEEAT MEN. 

dians and foreigners. I insist that the Government 
should not take the money from the men of the West 
and give it to these people. If we are going to make 
ourselves a trustee to dispense bounty or subsidy that 
has been thus procured from the men who sell their pro- 
duce abroad, I insist we should go a step further and 
say, 'We will see to it that the manufacturers do not 
pocket all the bounty they receive. Their machines need 
no protection; they are slaves; they neither drink nor 
eat nor wear.' The demand for protection admits that 
they do not intend to sell abroad ; they intend only to sell 
to our own people, and to those people who are compelled 
by our laws to buy from them, and that we by law com- 
pel to pay any price they see fit to ask them, upon the 
ground that we are protecting American labor, whereas 
the laborers are, in a majority of cases, in protected fac- 
tories, not^ Americans. 

"There is no protection to the American laborer. 
Any pauper can be brought here to compete with him ; 
and when the manutacturers have made enough goods to 
supply the consumption for a year or six months, as they 
can, they close the factories, wait for higher prices, allow 
their laborers and families to starve, and give them no 
protection at all. Carry the principle of bounty or sub- 
sidy or protection out. Let the Government be the 
trustee to divide up the subsidy that we demand by law 
for these people, and let us see to it that the laborer gets 
his share of the benefit. Let the Government send its 
of&cers into those great establishments and divide that 
money, thus extorted from others to protect manufact- 
urers, between the laborer and the man who puts in his 



JAMES B. BECK. 35 

capital to buy machines on terms of equality; then 
there would be some show of fairness in the pretext that 
we are imposing taxes to protect American labor. 

"When the factory is closed waiting for higher prices, 
and the higher prices come when scarcity follows, does 
the laborer get a dollar? IS'o ; the manufacturer who 
owns the machinery gets it all, and the market is reduced 
by closed doors until he can get what he wants. The 
laborer who produced it, and his family, and for whose 
benefit all the pretense is made that this is done, are, by 
their necessities, driven away from the establishments to 
hunt up a living wherever they can make it. 

"A small part of the tax reaches the Treasury. Of 
course no man will buy an article that is imported 
unless it is cheaper than the man who makes the same 
article here is willing to sell his for. I repeat, no man 
here will buy the imported article unless that article, 
after the forty-six per cent, is paid, and all the trans- 
portation is paid, is cheaper than the same article is 
offered him by the home manufacturer. Of course not. 
That proves that the home price is at least forty-six per 
cent, above what he could buy it for abroad. None 
would be sold if that were not so. . 

"Our people understand business. They buy the 
best article they can obtain for the least price. They do 
not care where it comes from, but every article made 
here must be sold here ; and that is the meaning of pro- 
tection, and that is all these gentlemen claim — to have a 
market for themselves, to make everything here and 
exclude everything else — sell it up to the highest point 
possible ; and they have to sell it higher than the foreign 

3 



36 OUR GREAT MEN. 

price with the tariif and the transportation added, for 
nobody would buy the imported article unless it was 
cheaper than the article made at home; and yet, as I 
said the other day, only seven human beings are em- 
ployed now where seventy were employed twenty years 
ago in our factories; the machine owner is the only 
protected man ; he is the lobbyist ; he is the man who 
clamors around Congress; he is the man who pre- 
tends that he is paying his laborers higher wages, while 
he drives them into enforced idleness, and they are 
driven out, on the average, six months in the year while 
his factories are closed, and his machines are greased, 
standing idle, waiting for the good days to bring a 
higher price, and the laborer gets no part of the benefit 
of that increase. 

"If it is intended to protect the laboring man, the 
man who really produces the article, the man whose 
labor brought it into existence by the use of the ma- 
chinery that the manufacturer has, the Government of 
the United States ought to see to it that in the distribu- 
tion of the bounty, which by law she has required every 
consumer of this country to contribute to these articles, 
the laborer gets his share. That sort of division no 
manufacturer, no advocate of protection wants or would 
submit to. He will pretend that he is anxious to aid 
labor, yet he will hire the Chinaman, the Hungarian, 
the Italian, the Canadian, anybody who will work five 
cents cheaper than the American, and drive him from 
his factory, close the door, and give him not a dollar 
more than he can hire anybody else for. 

♦' The demand of the protectionist ia for protection to 



JAMES B. BECK. 37 

machinery, and at the same time, free competition between 
all foreign and American labor in driving that machinery, 
and all the profit goes to the machine owner, and all the 
want and all the starvation and all the trouble falls upon 
the man who performs the labor, and who really gets no 
benefit from it, because these gentlemen refuse to com- 
pete with the world or with any other country outside, 
under the plea that they are protecting American labor. 

"The laborers of this country are beginning to 
understand it, and before long that producing people 
in the great country west of the Mississippi River 
will thoroughly understand the false pretenses and 
the hypocrisy under which the Government of the 
United States is subsidizing a few men to make them 
millionaires, and driving the great mass of the laborers 
into absolute poverty by contracting markets, curtailing 
manufacturers, narrowing the field of labor and consump- 
tion, and making this whole people pay double what 
any other people pay for what they use, thus making 
their wages go only half as far as anybody else's wages, 
and forcing them to lie idle half the year while the value 
of the products of the manufacturer is being doubled 
while their factories are closed, and all this by prohib- 
itory laws called * protection to American industry.' 
These are some of the reasons why I oppose the much- 
lauded system of protection. It protects the few, who do 
not need it, at the expense of the many, whose interest 
the Government should guard." 



Hon. GROVER CLEVELAND, 

OF NEW YORK. 




ROVER CLEVELAXD, twenty - second 
President of the United States, is a native 
of Caldwell, Essex County, New Jersey, 
where he was born the 18th of March, 1837. 
His father, Richard F. Cleveland, a Presbyterian minis- 
ter, was the son of William Cleveland, of Norwich, Con- 
necticut, who was a watchmaker by trade. Wlien young 
Grover was four years old his father moved to Fayette- 
ville, Onondaga County, New York, and here his youthful 
days were spent. In 1853 the family moved to Holland 
Patent, not far from Utica. 

Richard Cleveland was a well educated man, and a 
man of a good deal of talent. His ministry was a success. 
Only a few weeks after he moved to Holland Patent he 
died, leaving a widow and nine children. Grover received 
a common-school education, and at the age of fourteen 
years he entered a country store as salesman, receiving for 
the first year the sum of fifty dollars, w^hich was to have 
been doubled the second year had he remained. He 
attended the academy at Clinton, Oneida County, for some 
time, pursuing the usual preparatory studies for college, 
intending to complete his education with a collegiate 

(38) 







l©M#¥JiM €.LMT]E]!L^Sf] 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 41 

course, which was cut short by his father's death. Through 
the influence of his brother William he secured a position 
in the Institution for the Blind, on Xinth Avenue, in Xew 
York City. He remained at the institution a little more 
than a year, and then spent the winter of 1854-65 with his 
mother. 

In the spring of 1855 he borrowed twenty-five dollars, 
and started for Cleveland, Ohio, intending to there com- 
mence reading law. On his way West he stopped at Buf- 
falo to visit his uncle, Louis F. Allen, who induced him 
to remain at Buffalo, offering him a home while he pre- 
pared for the Bar. During the latter part of the year 
Grover entered the law office of Rogers & Bowen, who 
were prominent barristers in Butfalo. Thus, at the early 
age of nineteen, Grover Cleveland commenced his life in 
Buffalo, and under most promising circumstances. Mr. 
Allen was a man of wide influence, and with many influ- 
ential friends among the most prominent men of Eric 
County, as well as those of the city of Buffalo. 

In 1859 Grover Cleveland was admitted to the Bar, 
and early in 1863 he w^as appointed Assistant District 
Attorney for Erie County. This office brought Mr. Cleve- 
land into prominence, and accustomed him to the trial of 
cases. A. great deal of the w^ork of the office fell upon f 
Cleveland, and the time spent there was of inestimable ry^, 
value to him in drilling him for future work. This office' 
also brought him into politics. He always acted with the 
Democratic party. In 1866 he was nominated by the 
Democrats of Erie County for the office of District Attor- 
ney, but was defeated in the election. Four years later 
he was elected Sheriff of Erie County, and served one term. 






42 OUR GREAT MEN. 

He then formed a law partnership with Lyman K. 
Bass and William S. Bissell. Mr. Bass removed to Col- 
orado on account of ill health, and George J. Sicard took 
his place in the firm, and the firm was afterward known 
as Cleveland, Bissell & Sicard. The success of Mr. Cleve- 
land was as great as could be desired, and he won an 
enviable reputation as a sound lawyer and jurist. 

An election for Mayor was held in Buffalo in 1881. 
There was some dissatisfaction felt with the previous 
administration of the city aflfairs, and a feeling was mani- 
fested that if the Democrats nominated the proper man, 
their candidate for Mayor could be elected. Cleveland 
was strongly urged to accept that nomination upon a plat- 
form of municipal reform, and after a heated canvass 
he was elected by a majority of three thousand five hun- 
dred. He was inaugurated January 1, 1882. He ap- 
pointed as his Secretary Mr. Harmon S. Cuttings, a 
lawyer of ability, and who held first rank as a municipal 
lawyer. 

In accepting the nomination for Mayor, Mr. Cleveland 
said: 

"There is, or there should be, no reason why the 
affairs of our city should not be managed with the same 
care and the same economy as private interests; and 
when we consider that public officials are the trustees of 
the people, and hold their places and exercise their powers 
for the benefit of the people, there should be no higher 
inducement to a faithful and honest discharge of public 
duty." 

In his Inaugural message he said : 

" We hold the money of the people in our hands, to be 



QROVER CLEVELAND. 43 

used for their purposes and to further their interests as 
members of the municipality; and it is quite apparent 
that when any part of the funds which the tax-payers have 
thus intrusted to us are diverted to other purposes, or 
when, by design or neglect, we allow a greater sum to be 
applied to any municipal purpose than is necessary, we 
have, to that extent, violated our duty. There surely is 
no difference in his duties and obligations, whether a per- 
son is intrusted with the money of one man or many." 

These were the principles which he laid down as his 
guide. For examj)le: An ordinance was passed by the 
City Council giving five hundred dollars for the expenses 
of Decoration Day. The money was to be paid out of the 
4th of July fund, and was contrary to the charter of the 
city. In his veto he said : 

" I deem the object of this appropriation a most worthy 
one. The efforts of our veteran soldiers to keep alive the 
memory of their fallen comrades certainly deserves the 
aid and encouragement of their fellow-citizens. We should 
all, I think, feel it a duty and a privilege to contribute to 
the funds necessary to carry out such a purpose, and I 
should be much disappointed if an appeal to our citizens 
for voluntary subscriptions for this patriotic object should 
be in vain. 

" But the money so contributed should be a free gift 
of the citizens and tax-payers, and should not be extorted 
from them by taxation. This is so, because the purpose 
for which this money is asked does not invoke their pro- 
tection or interest as members of the community, and it 
may or it may not be approved by them. 

" The people are forced to pay taxes into the city treas- 



44 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ury only upon the theory that such money shall be 
expended for public purposes, or purposes in which they 
all have a direct and practical interest. 

" The logic of this position leads directly to the con- 
clusion that, if the people are forced to pay their money 
into the public fund, and it is spent by their servants and 
agents for purposes in which the people as tax-payers have 
no interest, the exaction of such taxes from them is oppres- 
sive and unjust. 

" I can not rid myself of the idea that this city govern- 
ment, in its relation to the tax-payers, is a business estab- 
lishment, and that it is put in our hands to be conducted 
on business principles. 

" This theory does not admit of our donating the public 
funds in the manner contemplated by the action of your 
honorable body. 

" I deem it my duty, therefore, to return both of the 
resolutions herein referred to without my approval." 

Mayor Cleveland also soon declared his sentiments on 
a still more important subject. The contract for cleaning 
the streets of the city of Buffalo for the period of five 
years had been awarded by the City Council to a party 
for the sum of four hundred and twenty-two thousand five 
hundred dollars ($422,500). An offer had been made by 
another party to take the contract for one hundred thou- 
sand dollars ($100,000) less, and a short time previous the 
party to whom the contract was awarded had offered to do 
the work for fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) less. Mayor 
Cleveland vetoed the resolution, and his veto message con- 
tained the following : 

''This is a time for plain speech, and my objection to 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 45 

the action of your honorable body now under consideration 
shall be plainly stated. I withhold my assent from the 
same because I regard it as the culmination of a most bare- 
faced, impudent and shameless scheme to betray the inter- 
ests of the people and to worse than squander the public 
money. 

" I will not be misunderstood in this matter. There 
are those whose votes were given for this resolution whom 
I can not and will not suspect of a willful neglect of the 
interests they are sworn to protect ; but it has been fully 
demonstrated that there are influences, both in and about 
your honorable body, which it behooves every honest man 
to watch and avoid with the greatest care. 

" When cool judgment rules the hour the people will, I 
hope and believe, Jiave no reason to complain of the action 
of your honorable body. But clumsy appeals to prejudice 
or passion, insinuations, with a kind of low, cheap cun- 
ning, as to the motives and purposes of others, and the 
mock heroism of brazen effrontery which openly declares 
that a wholesome public sentiment is to be set at naught, 
sometimes deceive and lead honest men to aid in the con- 
summation of schemes which, if exposed, they would look 
upon with abhorrence. 

" If the scandal in connection with this streetrcleaning 
contract, which has so aroused our citizens, shall cause 
them to select and watch with more care those to whom 
they intrust their interests, and if it serves to make all of 
us who are charged with official duties more careful in 
their performance, it will not be an unmitigated evil. 

"We are fast gaining positions in the grades of public 
stewardship. There is no middle ground. Those who 



46 OUR GREAT MEN. 

are not for the people, either in or out of your honorable 
body, are against them, and should be treated accordingly." 

A Governor was to be elected in New York in the fall 
of 1882, and the leaders of Mr. Cleveland's party in Buf- 
falo urged that his name be presented. Many of the 
Buffalo Republicans were also in favor of him, and in a 
short time the western part of the State, as far as his own 
party was concerned, became supporters of Cleveland for 
Governor. In the eastern part of the State the Demo- 
cratic party was somewhat divided. The old struggle 
with Tammany had been renewed, but a union of the 
Democracy of the State, including Tammany, was made 
when Grover Cleveland was nominated for Governor on 
the third ballot in the Democratic Convention at Syra- 
cuse. Dissatisfaction reigned among the Republicans in 
regard to their nominee for Governor; and in November, 
1882, Grover Cleveland was elected Governor by 192,000 
majority, the greatest majority that any Governor had ever 
received in the State. 

His conduct as Mayor was followed in the Governor- 
ship, though in a larger sphere. His principles of reform, 
in the interest of the people, were closely applied, and 
although he evolved some criticism, and the enmity of 
Tammany, he made a record of which New York is proud. 

We quote from a message by Governor Cleveland on 
" Corporations : " 

" The State creates these corporations upon the theory 
that some proper thing of benefit can be better done by 
them than by private enterprise, and that the aggregation 
of the funds of many individuals may be thus profitably 
employed. They are launched upon the public with the 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 47 

seal of the State, in some sense, upon them. They are 
permitted to represent the advantages they possess, and 
the wealth sure to follow from admission to membership. 
In one hand is held a charter from the State and in the 
other is proffered their stock. 

* * * « » * 

"It is a grave question whether the formation of these 
artificial bodies ought not to be checked or better regu- 
lated, and in some way supervised. 

"At any rate, they should always be kept well in 
hand, and the funds of its citizens should be protected by 
the State which has invited their investment. While the 
stockholders are the owners of the corporate property, 
notoriously they are oftentimes completely in the power 
of the directors and managers, who acquire a majority of 
the stock, and by this means perpetuate their control, 
using the corporate j^roperty and franchises for their ben- 
efit and profit, regardless of the interests and rights of 
the minority of stockholders. Immense salaries are paid 
to officers ; transactions are consummated by which the 
directors make money while the rank and file among the 
stockholders lose it; the honest investor waits for divi- 
dends, and the directors grow rich. It is suspected, too, 
that large sums are spent under various disguises in 
efforts to influence legislation. 

"It is not consistent to claim that the citizen must pro- 
tect himself by refusing to purchase stock. The law con- 
stantly recognizes the fact that people should be defended 
from false representations and from their own folly and 
cupidity. It punishes obtaining goods by false pretenses, 
gambling and lotteries. 



48 OUR GREAT MEN. 

"It is a hollow mockery to direct the owner of a small 
amount of stock in one of these institutions to the courts. 
Under existing statutes the law's delay, perplexity and 
uncertainty leads but to despair." 

In 1884 Grover Cleveland was announced by his 
friends of the New York Democracy as a candidate for 
President of the United States. His friends included 
nearly all of the Democratic party of New York, with the 
exception of the Tammany wing. Roswell P. Flower 
was presented by Tammany as a candidate for President, 
Some uncertainty existed before Mr. Tilden declared him- 
self not a candidate. The party at large had still looked 
to Tilden as the man to lead them, if he so desired. Mr. 
Tilden's letter settled that question. When Mr. Tilden 
withdrew from the field he dropped his scepter into the 
hands of Grover Cleveland. Tammany made a strong 
fight in the State against Cleveland. The elections of 
delegates were warmly contested. The result was a large 
majority in favor of Cleveland. 

Mr. McDonald, of Indiana, was a candidate for Pres- 
ident. It was thought for a time the West would unite 
on him. Mr. Hendricks favored his nomination. But it 
became evident that the union of the West on any candi- 
date would be impossible. Besides, New York was a 
State that it seemed necessary to the Democrats to carry. 
It probably would decide the Presidential election. It 
had done so many times in the past. Without New 
York, victory to the Democracy was improbable. This 
question was carefully considered. They felt that no 
mistake must be made. The present must profit by the 
past. 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 49 

General Palmer, of Illinois, also Mr. Randall, of 
Pennsylvania, were talked of as candidates ; also Judge 
Field, of California; Thomas A. Bayard, of Delaware, 
and Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio. These men were pre- 
sented to the N"ational Democratic Convention as candi- 
dates. The New York delegation, with the exception of 
Tammany, placed in nomination the name of Grover 
Cleveland. 

For eighteen months he had been before the eyes of 
the American people, and although a young man, politi- 
cally, he was nominated on the second ballot for President. 
He had seemed to take but little interest in his nomina- 
tion. In his letter of acceptance he used that sentence 
which has been made famous by his utterance, "Public 
office is a public trust." The camj^aign that followed was 
a warm and close one. It resulted in a very close vote in 
his own State ; but he carried the State by a majority of 
1,047. He received the votes of 219 electors, while his 
opponent received only 182. On the 4th of March, 1885, 
he was inaugurated President of the United States ; and 
in his inaugural he showed plainly that the principles 
and precepts he had practiced since the commencement 
of his public career should be followed by him in the ad- 
ministration of the highest office the IS'ation could bestow. 

He selected a Cabinet, strong and forcible; and believ- 
ing in the principles of civil service reform, with them, 
he applied those principles to American politics. He 
found many difficulties ; many of his own party differed 
with him upon the subject ; but as a man, guided by great 
principles, fearless of nothing, he stood firmly by that 
which he believed to be right. 



60 OUR GREAT MEN. 

He looked not to party alone, but to the people; and 
to their interests, and to their rights, he maintained he 
was bound by a solemn oath. And much to the surprise of 
many politicians he demonstrated the fact that he was 
the President of the people and not the slave of any man. 

Mr. Cleveland's first message to Congress was a 
document that showed his statesmanship, and compared 
favorably with that of any of his predecessors. As a 
hard worker, a man of close attention to his public 
duties, and with an eagle eye that penetrates into, and 
scrutinizes thoroughly, everything that comes within the 
line of his public duty, we may say he has not had an 
equal. 

The 2d of June, 1886, Grover Cleveland was married 
to Miss Frances Folsom, of Buifalo, New York. This 
was the first time any President was married in the 
White House. She who thus became the first lady of 
the land was well worthy the position she was called 
to fill. 

One of the most important events of Mr. Cleveland's 
administration was the struggle between the Senate and 
the Executive in regard to the furnishing of papers con- 
cerning the suspension of certain oflicers. The Presi- 
dent's position was admirably stated in his message to 
Congress upon this subject. It also illustrates his terse 
manner of dealing with these matters : 

" To the Senate of the United States: 

" Ever since the beginning of the present session of 
the Senate the different heads of the Departments at- 
tached to the Executive branch of the Gfovernment have 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 61 

been plied with various requests and demands from com- 
mittees of the Senate, from members of such committees, 
and at last from the Senate itself, requiring the trans- 
mission of reasons for the suspension of certain officials 
during the recess of that body, or for papers touching the 
conduct of such officials, or for all papers and docu- 
ments relating to such suspensions, or for all documents 
and papers filed in such departments in relation to the 
management and conduct of the offices held by such sus- 
pended officials. 

"The different terms from time to time adopted in 
making these requests and demands, the order in which 
they succeeded each other, and the fact that when made 
by the Senate the resolution for that purpose was passed 
in executive session, have led to a presumption, the cor- 
rectness of which will, I suppose, be candidly admitted, 
that from first to last the information thus sought, and 
the papers thus demanded, were desired for use by the 
Senate and its committees in considering the propriety 
of the suspensions referred to. 

" Though these suspensions are my executive acts, 
based upon considerations addressed to me alone, and for 
which I am wholly responsible, I have had no invitation 
from the Senate to state the position which I have felt 
constrained to assume in relation to the same, or to inter- 
pret for myself my acts and motives in the premises. 

"In this condition of affairs I have forborne address- 
ing the Senate upon the subject, lest I might be accused 
of thrusting myself unbidden upon the attention of that 
body. 

" But the report on the Committee on the Judiciary 



o2 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of the Senate, lately presented and published, which cen- 
sures the Attorney-General of the United States for his 
refusal to transmit certain papers relating to a suspension 
from office, and which also, if I correctly interpret it, 
evinces a misapprehension of the position of the Exec- 
utive upon the question of such suspensions, will, I hope, 
justify this communication. 

"This report is j^redicated upon a resolution of the 
Senate, directed to the Attorney-General, and his reply 
to the same. This resolution was adopted in executive 
session devoted entirely to business connected with the 
consideration of nominations for office. It required the 
Attorney-General 'to transmit to the Senate copies of all 
documents and papers that have been filed in the Depart- 
ment of Justice since the 1st day of January, 1885, in 
relation to the management and conduct of the office of 
District Attorney of the United States of the Southern 
District of Alabama.' 

" The incumbent of this office on the 1st day of Jan- 
uary, 1885, and until the 17th day of July ensuing, was 
George M. Duskin, who, on the day last mentioned, was 
suspended by an executive order, and John D. Burnett 
designated to perform the duties of said office. At the 
time of the passage of the resolution above referred to, 
the nomination of Burnett for said office was pending 
before the Senate, and all the papers relating to said 
nomination were before that body for its inspection and 
information. 

"In reply to this resolution the Attorney-General, 
after referring to the fact that the papers relating to the 
nomination of Burnett had already been sent to the 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 53 

Senate, stated that he was directed by the President to 
say that ' the papers and documents which are mentioned 
in said resolution and still remaining in the custody of 
this Department, having exclusive reference to the sus- 
pension by the President of George M. Duskin, the 
late incumbent of the office of District Attorney for the 
Southern District of Alabama, it is not considered that 
the public interests will be promoted by a compliance 
with said resolution and the transmission of the papers 
and documents therein mentioned to the Senate in exec- 
utive session.' 

"Upon this resolution, and the answer thereto, the 
issue is thus stated by the Committee on the Judiciary at 
the outset of the report : 

" * The important question, then, is whether it is 
within the constitutional competence of either House of 
Congress to have access to the official papers and docu- 
ments in the various public offices of the United States 
created by laws enacted by themselves.' 

" I do not suppose that 'the public offices of the United 
States' are regulated or controlled in their relations to 
either House of Congress by the fact that they were 
'created by laws enacted by themselves.' It must be 
that these instrumentalities were created for the benefit 
of the people, and to answer the general purposes of 
government under the Constitution and the laws, and 
that they are unincumbered by any lien in favor of 
either branch of Congress growing out of their construc- 
tion, and unembarrassed by any obligation to the Senate 
as the price of their creation. 



54 OUR GREAT MEN. 

" Everything that had been written or done on behalf 
of the Senate from the beginning, pointed to all letters 
and papers of a private and unofficial nature as the 
objects of search, if they were to be found in the Depart- 
ments, and provided they had been presented to the 
Executive with a view to their consideration upon the 
question of suspension from office. 

"Against the transmission of such papers and docu- 
ments I have interposed my advice and direction. This 
has not been done, as is suggested in the committee's report, 
upon the assumption on my j^art that the Attorney-Gen- 
eral, or any other head of a Department, ' is the servant of 
the President, and is to give or withhold copies of doc- 
uments in his office according to the will of the Execu- 
tive, and not otherwise;' but because I regard the papers 
and documents withheld and addressed to me, or intended 
for my use aiid action, purely unofficial and private, not 
infrequently confidential, and having reference to the 
performance of a duty exclusively mine. I consider them 
in no proper sense as uj^on the files of the Department, 
but as deposited there for my convenience, remaining 
still com^^letely under my control. I suppose if I desired 
to take them into my custody I might do so with entire 
propriety, and if I saw fit to destroy them no one could 

complain. 

^ ^ ^ « « ^ 

"It will not be denied, I suppose, that the President 
may suspend a public officer in the entire absence of any 
papers or documents to aid his official judgment and dis- 
cretion, and I am quite j^repared to avow that the cases 
are not few in which suspensions from office have de- 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 55 

pended more upon oral representations made to me by 
citizens of known good repute, and by members of the 
House of Representatives and Senators of the United 
States, than upon any letters and documents presented 
for my examination. I have not felt justified in suspect- 
ing the veracity, integrity and patriotism of Senators, or 
ignoring their representations, because they were not in 
j)arty affiliation with the majority of their associates; 
and I recall a few suspensions which bear the approval 
of individual members identified politically with the 
majority in the Senate. 

" While, therefore, I am constrained to deny the right 
of the Senate to the papers and documents described, so 
far as the right to the same is based upon the claim that 
they are in any view of the subject official, 1 am led 
unequivocally to dispute the right of the Senate, by the 
aid of any documents whatever, or in any way save 
through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to 
review or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspen- 
sion, during the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials. 

"I believe the power to remove or suspend such 
officials is vested in the President alone by the Constitu- 
tion, which in express terms provides that 'the executive 
power shall be vested in a President of the United 
States of America,' and that 'he shall take cara that the 
laws be faithfully executed.' 

" The Senate belongs to the legislative branch of the 
Government. When the Constitution by express provis- 
ion superadded to its legislative duties the right to advise 
and consent to appointments to office and to sit as a 
court of impeachment, it conferred upon that body all 



56 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the control and regulation of executive action supposed to 
be necessary for the safety of the people ; and this express 
and special grant of such extraordinary powers, not in any 
way related to or growing out of general Senatorial duty, 
and in itself a departure from the general plan of our 
Government, should be held, under a familiar maxim of 
construction, to exclude every other right of interference 
with executive functions. 

****** 

'' The requests and demands which, by the score, 
have for nearly three months been presented to the dif- 
ferent Departments of the Government, whatever may be 
their form, have but one complexion. They assume the 
right of the Senate to sit in judgment upon the exercise 
of my exclusive discretion and executive function, for 
which I am solely responsible to the people from whom 
I have so lately received the sacred trust of office. My 
oath to support and defend the Constitution, my duty to 
the people who have chosen me to execute the powers of 
their great office, and not to relinquish them, and my 
duty to the Chief Magistracy which I must preserve 
unimpaired in all its dignity and vigor, compel me to 
refuse compliance with these demands. 

"To the end that the service may be improved, the 
Senate is invited to the fullest scrutiny of the persons 
submitted to them for public office, in recognition of the 
constitutional power of that body to advise and consent 
to their appointment. I shall continue, as I have thus 
far done, to furnish, at the request of the confirming body, 
all the information I possess touching the fitness of the 
nominees placed before them for their action, both when 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 57 

they are proposed to fill vacancies and to take the place 
of suspended officials. Upon a refusal to confirm I shall 
not assume the right to ask the reasons for the action of 
the Senate, nor question its determination. I can not 
think that anything more is required to secure worthy 
incumbents in public office than a careful and independ- 
ent discharge of our respective duties within their well- 
defined limits. 

" Though the propriety of suspensions might be better 
assured if the action of the President was subject to 
review by the Senate, yet if the Constitution and the 
laws have placed this responsibility upon the executive 
branch of the Government, it should not be divided nor 
the discretion which it involves relinquished. 

"It has been claimed that the present Executive 
having pledged himself not to remove officials except for 
cause, the fact of their suspension applies such miscon- 
duct on the part of a suspended official as injures his 
character and reputation, and therefore the Senate should 
review the case for his vindication. 

" I have said that certain officials should not, in my 
opinion, be removed during the continuance of the term 
for which they were appointed solely for the j^urpose of 
putting in their place those in political affiliation with 
the appointing power, and this declaration was immedi- 
ately followed by a description of official j^artisanship 
which ought not to entitle those in whom it was exhibited 
to consideration. It is not apparent how an adherence to 
the course thus announced carries with it the conse- 
quences described. If in any degree the suggestion is 
worthy of consideration, it is to be hoped that there may 



58 OUR GREAT MEN. 

be a defense against unjust suspension in the justice of 
the Executive. 

"Every pledge which I have made, by which I have 
placed a limitation upon my exercise of executive power, 
has been faithfully redeemed. Of course the pretense is 
not put forth that no mistakes have been committed; 
but not a suspension has been made except it appeared 
to my satisfaction that the public welfare would be im- 
i^roved thereby. Many applications for suspension have 
been denied ; and the adherence to the rule laid down to 
govern my actions to such suspensions has caused much 
irritation and impatience on the part of those who have 
insisted upon more changes in the offices. 

" The pledges I have made were made to the people, 
and to whom I am responsible for the manner in which 
they have been redeemed. I am not responsible to the 
Senate, and I am unwilling to submit my actions and 
official conduct to them for judgment. 

" There are no grounds for an allegation that the fear 
of being found false to my professions influences me in 
declining to submit to the demands of the Senate. I 
have not constantly refused to suspend officials, and thus 
incurred the displeasure of political friends, and yet 
wilfully broken faith with the people for the sake of 
being false to them. 

" Neither the discontent of party friends, nor the 
allurements constantly offered of confirmations of ap- 
pointees conditioned upon the avowal that suspensions 
have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat 
proposed in the resolutions now before the Senate that 
no confirmations will be made unless the demands of 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 59 

that body are complied with, are sufficient to discourage 
or deter me from following in the way which I am con- 
vinced leads to better government for the people. 

"GROVER CLEVELAND. 
"Executive Mansion, 
" Washington, D. C, March 1, 1886." 

We also give extracts from his inaugural address, 
delivered March 4th, 1885 : 

"To-day the executive branch of the Government is 
transferred to new keeping. But this is still the Govern- 
ment of all the people, and it should be none the less an 
object of their affectionate solicitude. At this hour the 
animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan 
defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph, should be 
supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular 
will, and a sober, conscientious concern for the general 
weal. Moreover, if, from this hour, we cheerfully and 
honestly abandon all sectional prejudice and distrust, and 
determine, with manly confidence in one another, to work 
out harmoniously the achievements of our National des- 
tiny, we shall deserve to realize all the benefits which our 
happy form of government can bestow. 

"On this auspicious occasion we may well renew the 
pledge of our devotion to the Constitution which, launched 
by the founders of the Republic, and consecrated by their 
prayers and patriotic devotion, has for almost a century 
borne the hopes and the aspirations of a great people 
through prosperity and peace, and through the shock of 
foreign conflicts and the perils of domestic strife and 
vicissitudes. 



60 OUR GREAT MEN. 

****** 

" But he who takes the oath to-day to preserve, protect 
and defend the Constitution of the United States, only 
assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic cit- 
izen, on the farm, in the workshop, in the busy marts of 
trade, and everywhere, should share with him. The Con- 
stitution which prescribes his oath, my countrymen, is 
yours; the Grovernment you have chosen him to admin- 
ister for a time is yours ; the suffrage which executes the 
will of freemen is yours ; the laws and the entire scheme 
of our civil rule, from the town-meeting to the State 
Capitols and the National Capitol, is yours. Your every 
vote, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same 
high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a 
public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to 
the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its 
public servants, and a fair and reasonable estimate of 
their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will 
impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity — 
municipal, State and Federal — and this is the price of 
our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the 
Republic. 

"It is the duty of those serving the people in public 
place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual 
needs of the Government economically administered, 
because this bounds the right of the Government to 
exact tribute from the earnings of labor or the property 
of the citizen, and because public extravagance begets 
Extravagance among the people. We should never be 
ashamed of the simplicity and prudential economies 
which are best suited to the operation of a republican 



GKOVER CLEVELAND. 61 

form of government, and most compatible with the 
mission of the American people. Those who are selected 
for a limited time to manage public affairs are still of the 
people, and may do much by their example to encourage, 
consistently with the dignity of their official functions, 
that plain way of life, which, among their fellow-citizens, 
aids integrity and promotes thrift and prosperity. 



" The people demand reform in the administration of 
the Government, and the application of business princi- 
ples to public affairs. As a means to this end civil- 
service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our cit- 
izens have the right to protection from the incompetency 
of public employes who hold their places solely as the 
reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting 
influence of those who promise, and the vicious methods 
of those who expect, such rewards ; and those who worth- 
ily seek public employment have the right to insist that 
merit and competency shall be recognized instead of 
party subserviency, or the surrender of honest political 
belief. 

" In the administration of a government pledged to 
do equal justice to all men, there should be no pretext 
for anxiety touching the protection of the freedmen in 
their rights, or their security in the enjoyment of their 
privileges under the Constitution and its amendments. 
All discussion as to their fitness for the place accorded to 
them as American citizens is idle and unprofitable, ex- 
cept as it suggests the necessity for their improvement. 
The fact that they are citizens entitles them to all the 



62 OUR GREAT MEN. 

rights due to that relation, and charges them with all its 
duties, obligations and responsibilities. 

"These topics, and the constant and ever-varying 
wants of an active and enterprising population, may well 
receive the attention and the patriotic endeavor of all 
who make and execute the Federal law. Our duties are 
practical, and call for industrious application, an intelli- 
gent perception of the claims of public office, and, above 
all, a firm determination, by united action, to secure to 
all the people of the land the full benefits of the best 
form of government ever vouchsafed to man. And let 
us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowl- 
edging the power and goodness of Almighty God, who 
presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all 
times been revealed in our country's history, let us in- 
voke His aid and His blessing upon our labors." 




Hon. WILLIAM C. OATES, 

OF ALABAMA. 




IlLLIAM C. OATES, of Abbeville, who 
represents the Third Congressional Dis- 
trict of Alabama in the United States 
Congress, was born in Pike (now Bullock) 
County, Alabama, November 30th, 1835. He was in 
great part self-educated, attending the common schools 
of Eufaula when over twenty-one years of age. He 
attended school one year at Lawrenceville Academy, 
then read law for four months with Pugh, Bullock & 
Buford, in Eufaula, Alabama; was admitted to the Bar 
by Judge Doherty of the T^finth District, at Clayton, 
Alabama, in October, 1858. He commenced practicing 
law at Abbeville, Alabama, and was for a time editor of 
The Banner, a journal then published there. Except 
during the civil war he has been steadily engaged in the 
practice of his profession, and has been prosperous in 
all his business as well as his legal pursuits. 

He entered the Confederate Army as CajDtain of Com- 
pany Gr, Fifteenth Alabama Infantry in July, 1861. He 
was appointed Colonel in the Provisional Army of the 
Confederate States May 1st, 1863, having been pro- 
moted from Captain for gallantry on the field of battle, 

(63) 



64 OUR GREAT MEN. 

and the distinction he had gained for prompt and faithful 
discharge of all orders from his superiors, he was assigned 
to the command of his old regiment. The Forty-eighth 
Alabama was subsequently placed under him. He bore 
a conspicuous part in the decisive battle of the Rebell- 
ion — that of Gettysburg. He was stationed on the 
extreme right of Lee's line, in Longstreet's furious 
charge on the second day. His regiment took Round 
Top Mountain and held it until night, when they re- 
treated, leaving nearly two-thirds of their regiment on its 
sloping sides. Colonel Oates was wounded six times 
slightly and four times severely, losing his right arm in 
front of Richmond, August 16th, 1864, in the thirty- 
seventh battle in which he was engaged. 

He was a delegate to the National Democratic Con- 
vention held in New York in 1868, which nominated 
Seymour for the Presidency. He was a member of the 
Alabama House of Representatives, and was Chairman 
of the Committee on Ways and Means during the sessions 
of 1870-71 and 1871-72. He was an unsuccessful can- 
didate for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 
1872, and later, in the same year, was nominated for 
Congress in Montgomery District, and was defeated by 
the Republican candidate, though by a greatly reduced 
majority. 

He was a member of the State Constitutional Conven- 
tion in 1875, and Chairman of its Judiciary Committee. 
He was elected to the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth 
Congresses, and was re-elected to the Forty-ninth Con- 
gress of the United States as a Democrat, receiving 
10,965 votes against 4,349 votes for Mabson. 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 65 

Mr. Gates is a strong and forcible speaker, clothing 
his thoughts in pure, simple English. We think one of 
his best speeches in Congress was a plea for the Consti- 
tution, delivered upon the joint resolution appropriating 
$300,000 to prevent the overflow of the City of New 
Orleans, Louisiana, and the country adjacent thereto. 
Mr. Gates said: 

" No man sympathizes more deeply and heartily with 
a people in distress than I do ; but, sir, the Congress of 
the United States never was intended to be an almshouse. 
We are not here to dispense charity, nor to take charge 
of and direct, nor, indeed, in any manner to interfere 
with the domestic or local. affairs of the people of this 
country. These belong to the States. Should any over- 
powering calamity or uncontrollable disturbance occur 
within a State, and the proper authorities thereof appeal 
to Congress for assistance, I should not withhold my vote, 
but would feel that it was my duty as a Representative 
to do what I could to save the State and its people from 
destruction. But, sir, what is the resolution now before 
us ? Its title answers the inquiry. 

" No calamity has actually occurred. There is simply 
a probability, as shown only by letters and telegrams of 
an unofficial character. A great and wealthy city of 
300,000 people, without having made an effort or ex- 
pended a dollar of her own money, so far as this House 
has been advised, appealing to Congress for an appropri- 
ation, of as many dollars as it has population, to prevent 
an overflow, is a fitting commentary on paternal gov- 
ernment. 

"Mr. Speaker, Congress has no constitutional power 



QQ OUR GREAT MEN. 

to make such appropriations as that now proposed. The 
only clause in the Constitution under which any crank 
pretends to find authority for it is the following, in Sec- 
tion 8 of Article I : 

'"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect 
taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and 
proAdde for the common defense and common welfare of 
the United States.' 

"This invests Congress with the taxing power, and 
expresses only in a general Avay the three grand purposes 
for which this power may be exercised. As to the man- 
ner in which Congress may use the money obtained 
to effect these grand purposes we must look further on in 
the same instrument for minute and specific directions or 
grants of power. 

" The first, to pay the debts, is so unambiguous and 
self-defining that nothing more is necessary, notwith- 
standing ' to borrow money ' and ' to coin money ' follow 
as express grants. 

"The second, to provide for the common defense, is 
followed by the express grants 'to raise and support 
armies,' and ' to provide and maintain a navy.' 

" Now, in the absence of these specific directions as 
to how the grand purpose of common defense is to be 
accomplished, Congress might adopt some other method, 
such as buying our peace by paying an invader the 
money of the Grovernment to withdraw from our shores, 
or using the money to pay for assassinations and poison- 
ing of the common enemy. But the Constitution comes 
to our aid and tells us plainly how to provide for the 
common defense, by raising armies and providing a navy. 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 67 

" Tho third grand object, to provide for the general 
welfare, fijfids its field of operation and application in all 
of the other express directions or grants of power. Foi- 
example, to regulate commerce, to establish rules of nat- 
uralization, to make uniform laws upon the subject of 
bankruptcy, to provide for the punishment of counterfeit- 
ing, to establish post-offices and j)ost-roads, to promote 
the progress of science, to constitute the judicial tribu- 
nals inferior to the Supreme Court, to define and punish 
piracies and felonies and ofi*enses against the law of 
nations committed upon the high seas, to declare war, to 
make rules for the government of the land and naval 
forces, to provide for calling forth the militia, to provide 
for organizing, etc., the militia, to exercise exclusive leg- 
islation in this District, and 'to make all laws which shall 
be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the 
foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this 
Constitution in the Government of the United States, or 
in any department or officer thereof.' I presume it is not 
necessary for one to enumerate the ' other powers ' 
named in the paragraph just read. 'No one is so obtuse 
as not to be able to distinguish them. 

" As there is, then, no express grant of power to 
Congress to bestow the largesses of the Government 
upon either real or fancied objects of charity, there 
is nothing from which such a joower can be implied, 
Fince the general welfare, as we have seen, is provided 
for and specified in many ways in the Constitution ; and 
the tenth article of amendment declares that ' the jDowers 
not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 



68 OUR GREAT MEX. 

States respectively, or to the people.' Such measures as 
that now proposed, not being among the powers expressly 
nor impliedly delegated, reside in the States, and Con- 
gress can not exercise them. 

"This is not a government of original but of derived 
powers. Its powers are limited and enumerated in the 
instrument of its creation. The third and most compre- 
hensive grand purpose for which taxes, imposts and 
excises are to be laid and collected, it should be observed, 
is not to provide for the general welfare of the people of 
the United States, for such is not the language employed. 
That purpose as expressed is ' to provide for the general 
welfare of the United States ' — that is, to provide for the 
general welfare of that government called the 'United 
States,' or that government which the States unitedly 
established. The purpose was and is political, and not 
domestic ; hence the enumeration and particular specifica- 
tion, so far as the cardinal principle of brevity applica- 
ble to a constitution would admit, of what should be done, 
and to which the revenues of the Government should be 
applied. 

"I do not contend for a strict construction, but a 
strict observance of the Constitution. I do not contend 
for a strict or narrow construction, but I do contend for 
the Constitution which I have sworn to support and 
defend; and I do so because it is the palladium of the 
liberties of the people, and the oath is binding on my 
conscience. Whenever by express words a power is 
delegated to the United States, I, as a Representative, 
will vote for any measure proper in itself, though not 
within the expressed power, if it be necessary to give full 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 69 

Operation, force and efficacy to such expressed power. 
Everything which I can conscientiously concede to have 
been confided to ' the Congress ' by the Constitution I will 
most cheerfully, yea, generously and liberally exercise to 
ameliorate suffering humanity, or to advance the inter- 
ests of the whole people of the United States, without 
distinction as to locality or previous condition. 

" But further than this I will not go, because I believe 
in the restraints on discretion imposed by a written con- 
stitution. If it be admitted that Congress can do any- 
thing which the Constitution does not prohibit, which is 
the rule of construction a Legislature puts upon a State 
Constitution, there are so small a number of these that 
you, in effect, subvert the Constitution and substitute the 
unbridled will or discretion of a majority of the mem- 
bers. Legislation would then depend more on the state 
of Congressional stomachs than upon a written Constitu- 
tion. Centralism, in all its amplitude, would then be 
established, enthroned where boasted American liberty 
once presided. 

" ' To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and 
among the several States, and with the Indian tribes,' is 
an express grant of power to Congress. Publicists, 
statesmen and scholars have held, and, in fact, it has 
been judicially determined that Congress, to give force 
and amplitude to this provision, may exercise an implied 
power to appropriate money out of the Treasury for the 
improvement of the navigation of rivers and harbors. 
Under the express grant of power to Congress ' to pro- 
vide and maintain a navy,' we can appropriate money 
for the maintenance of the Naval Academy at Annapolis 



70 OUR GEEAT MEN. 

under an implied power, for the reason that no one can 
deny that by this means skillful ofacers are supplied and 
the Navy made efficient at least in that respect. Inci- 
dental to this naval power is the right of Congress to 
appropriate money for the relief of Lieutenant G-reeley 
and his party. The expedition, in my judgment, was a 
foolish one, but the Government ordered or permitted 
him to go, and, having done so, humanity and duty unite 
in demanding that the Government shall do all it can to 
rescue and save him and his party from destruction. 

" So, too, there being an express grant to Congress of 
power 'to raise and support armies,' and 'to make rules 
for the government of the land and naval forces,' there is 
an implied power to maintain, at the expense of the public, 
the military academy at West Point for the education of 
officers to command the armies in an efficient and skill- 
ful manner. The same, or a similar rule applies, and 
very properly, too, to the power ' to establish post-offices 
and post-roads,' and, in fact, to all of the express delega- 
tions of power. Many acts of Congress are claimed by the 
thoughtless, and sometimes even by the members of Con- 
gress, to be violations of the Constitution when they are 
not obnoxious to that censure. But the force of precedent 
in this House and the Senate is so much honore(^ that 
hoary error stalks abroad on stilts and violates the Con- 
stitution with impunity, and with no better apology or 
excuse for it than that some American Lycurgus had set 
him the example. 

" I have no veneration, sir, for age nor precedent when 
panoplied in error and fatally bent on mischief. If, as 
we are told, in 1812, Macon, Calhoun, Johnson, King, 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 71 

Randolph, Troup, and other great men voted $50,000 to 
be used in purchasing and shipping flour for the relief of 
the starving people of Caraccas, in Venezuela, who were 
suffering from the effects of a terrible earthquake, and 
also for the people of the island of Teneriffe, who were 
starving in consequence of their crops having been eaten 
up by locusts ; or if, still later, in 1847, Calhoun, Web- 
ster, Cameron, Corwin, Sam Houston, Reverdy Johnson, 
and other noted statesmen, voted with the majority to 
tender provisions to Great Britain for the relief of the 
people of Ireland and Scotland during the prevalence of 
a famine, do these justify the adoption of the resolution 
now before the House, or the appropriation for the overv 
flow on the Ohio ? 

" In 1812 the House of Representatives struck out of 
the resolution the latter part, providing for the island of 
Teneriffe, ostensibly because they did not have evidence 
sufficient of the suffering of the people, but really be- 
cause the island was under British dominion, and it was 
not probable that any advantage to the foreign policy 
would be obtained thereby. Mr. Rhea spoke against 
extending aid to Teneriffe as a mere charity, but in favor 
of Caraccas ; for, he said, ' in doing so he was actuated by 
a regard to the interests of the United States, which 
peculiarly required them to cultivate amity with and 
conciliate the South American provinces.' Mark you, a 
war was then in progress with Great Britain. After the 
resolution was so amended as to apply only to Caraccas, 
it was passed unanimously. 

"In 1847, March 1, now a little over thirty-seven 
years ago, when Mr. Crittenden introduced into the 



72 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Senate his bill to appropriate |500,000 for the relief of 
the people of Ireland and Scotland from famine, among 
other things he said: 

" ' So far as the constitutional argument is concerned, 
with the voice of suffering ringing in my ears, and this 
precedent before me (Caraccas), I lay down all objections 
at the feet of Charity.' 

"Mr. Niles said they had better leave the business of 
dispensing alms to the liberality, generosity and better 
judgment of their constituents. He felt that he had no 
authority to vote half a million of money for the people 
of Ireland — none at all in his representative capacity. 
He did not feel justified in taking the people's money for 
any object which was not committed to our charge. It 
was all wrong. Senators seem to rely on the precedent 
established by the act of Congress — an inconsiderate act 
he considered it — giving a portion of public money in 
the case of the earthquake at Caraccas. He did not 
regard that as establishing a precedent for this appropri- 
ation, which would be placed on record to justify similar 
appropriations for all time to come. He would not put 
his hands into the public Treasury to make an improper, 
he had almost said unconstitutional, use of the public 
money, of the money of his constituents. 

"Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, said that with the 
views he entertained of the Constitution and our national 
policy he could not vote for the bill. Mr. Bagby, a Sen- 
ator from Alabama, said that he denied that they had 
any constitutional authority to appropriate money for 
such objects. He thought he could see some of the con- 
sequences of such a precedent as this would be. * 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 73 

* * * If this system of national charity was 
to be indulged in, he asked where would it end ? He 
said they had no such power; and if they had, human 
imagination would not be able to fix to it a limit. The 
revenues of this country were derived from one source, 
and one only. They are derived from the joeople of the 
United States, and they were derived for specific pur- 
poses. Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said that he could not 
but see in it a perversion of the trust reposed in them 
under the Constitution of the United States. 

"One Senator alone, Mr Hannegan, of Indiana, con- 
tended that there was constitutional power to make the 
appropriation, and he put it upon the ground that there 
was no prohibition against it. But when Mr. Bagby 
asked if the Senator contended that Congress could do 
anything not prohibited in the Constitution, he put it on 
the teaching of the Saviour in the parable of the good 
Samaritan. Mr. Webster, in his remarks, did not touch 
the constitutional question, and Mr. Dayton said they 
had a precedent in 1812, which, in this instance, he 
desired to see followed. Mr. Fairchild, of Maine, said 
no Senator had put his finger on a single section of the 
Constitution which authorized them to give this appro- 
priation, although they were contending for the constitu- 
tional power to do so. It was a very easy thing to 
expend charities in this way; but he thought that they 
should put their hands in their own pockets and do it, 
but they had no right to put their hands in the pockets 
of the people. 

"Mr. Calhoun spoke in a very low tone so that he 
could not be very distinctly heard, but the remarks of 



74 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the Senator from Indiana caused him to explain why he 
had no constitutional objection to the measure. He 
drew a distinction between the foreign and domestic 
policy of this Grovernment. Entertaining these views, 
he had voted for the appropriation for the relief of the 
people of Caraccas in 1812 ; and it is true that the Con- 
stitution does not undertake to deal with, prescribe, nor 
limit the external or foreign powers or policy of this 
Government. The Constitution is a compact between 
the States, while outside to all the world this is a nation, 
and may use the money of the Government in advancing 
whatever international policy the Congress and President 
may deem best for the general welfare of the United 
States as a nation. 

"When Mr. Crittenden's bill was put on its passage in 
the House of Rei^resentatives, G. W. Jones, of Tennessee, 
moved to lay it on the table, and there were 75 yeas to 
79 nays. John Quincy Adams, John Bell, T. H. Benton, 
Andrew Johnson, Jacob Thomjoson, Seaborn Jones, of 
Georgia ; Chase, of Ohio ; Houston, Cobb, and Chapman, 
of Alabama, were among those who voted to table, and 
against the bill. 

" There are plenty of precedents still later and more 
in point, which not only tend to show the imj)ropriety of 
such legislation, but how, in their administration, such 
munificent appropriations may be used for corrupt parti- 
san purposes. I will mention one : 

"In May, 1874, there was an overflow of the Alabama 
and Tombigbce Rivers, reports of which to Congress, in 
an unofficial way, were doubtless greatly exaggerated, as 
they almost invariably are in such cases, and Congress 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 75 

appropriated $400,000 for the relief of the suifering 
people along those rivers. Rations were purchased and 
distributed under the then Republican administration; 
but how ? A large portion of the money was laid out for 
bacon, which was distributed, not in time of the over- 
flow, but in the following September and October, not 
only in the river districts, but in the hills and mountains 
of Middle and Eastern Alabama, for the purpose of cor- 
rupting and controlling the November election in the 
interest of the Republican party. 

"The carpet-baggers, with the overflowed bacon, 
sought the voters on the hills and in the high mountains 
during the prevalence of a drought, and tried to tempt 
them like the devil did the Saviour, and, doubtless, with 
much greater success as to a certain class of them. The 
Democrats then raised a great outcry against such 
flagrant violations of the Constitution and corrupt ad- 
ministration. If it were unconstitutional then, why is it 
not so now? The gentlemen who favor this measure are 
not harmonious, for the reason that one class of them want 
the money to be immediately expended in strengthening 
the levee along the river front of the City of New 
Orleans, while the others desire a larger appropriation 
for the relief of the destitute and sufl*ering people higher 
up the river, where, it is said, that more than one hun- 
dred thousand have been driven from their homes, and 
that these are generally poor laboring colored people 
who are dependent on the country merchants to advance 
supplies, etc. Now, allow me to analyze this charitable 
business upon the part of Congress and see if it is right. 

" Take three citizens of Barbour, the center county 



76 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of the district I have the honor to represent, of equal 
standing, wealth and merit. Two of them are farmers, 
and the third is a merchant. One of the farmers sells 
his possessions, and to better his prospects in life 
removes to and jDurchases a plantation in the rich bottom 
of the Mississij^pi, the most productive land in the 
world. The grand old Father of Waters affords him 
splendid commercial facilities. The merchant, with a 
like purpose in view, locates in New Orleans. The third 
remains away from any grand river, or great metropolis, 
upon his poor lands in Barbour. He has no rich soil, 
no great commercial advantages; but he is content, by 
incessant toil, to dig out of the impoverished soil but 
little if any more than a bare subsistence after paying 
his taxes. These have to be paid. The poorest laborer 
in the land may not have any property, and can thus 
avoid the payment of State and county taxes; but the 
exactions of the tariff, like death, are inexorable, and will 
not be evaded nor postponed. These taxes, you will 
remember, in section eight of the Constitution, are to 
pay the debts and provide for the common defense and 
general welfare. 

"The farmer on the Mississippi, with comparatively 
little expense, sees his crojos grow and bear in all the lux- 
uriance and abundance of his most fervent hope. At the 
marketing he sees his cotton bales by the hundreds 
rolled upon the steamer, uj)on which he is entertained 
with all the elegance that any lord of the earth could 
desire. Four to five millions of dollars a year, which are 
appropriated out of the Federal Treasury on river and 
harbor bills, have been expended upon the improvement 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 77 

of the navigation of that great river which insures his 
safe and speedy landing in New Orleans. He finds his 
old friend, the merchant, and sells him a good bargain in 
cotton, buys his large stock of supplies, and returns, he 
and his merchant both benefited and happy. They did 
well that year. 

" But the next year the river rises, the levee breaks, 
and the plantation is flooded, submerged, the stock 
drowned, the corn swept away, and there is distress 
and weeping where but a few days before smiling plenty 
greeted the eye and happiness reigned supreme. He 
appeals to Congress and says: 'Your coffers are full to 
overflowing ; you collected it from my friend in Barbour, 
in common with the other people of the United States, to 
pay your debts and run your Government, but you do 
not need it ; your credit is good. G-o on paying interest ; 
it does not matter about paying the debt now. Give me 
a few hundreds or thousands of this money to aid me ; I 
need it; I am overflowed; and, whatever others say, I 
know that my old friend in Barbour does not mind it. 
Has poor land, it is true, lives in the back country, and 
is not going to live near a river; but he sympathizes 
with me, and wants so badly to be taxed for my benefit 
that he demands that his Representative and Senators 
in Congress shall legislate a little outside of the Consti- 
tution in order to do it.' 

"But what of the merchant? Why, the first time 
we hear from him since the flood set in he is not yet over- 
flowed, but he does not know how soon he may be. He 
says the Legislature of his State is not in session ; that 
the one million of dollars which Congress gave to the 



78 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Mississippi River Commission less than two months ago 
has been expended, and he does not intend to expend 
twenty per cent, of what he is worth to strengthen and 
raise the levee along the river front to save the city from 
an overflow and his property from destruction, and if he 
does not get security some one will hear from him at the 
next election. -He says that he knows that his poor old 
farmer friend in Barbour would be delighted if Congress 
would add a few nickels more to his taxes, in common 
with all the other people, to build up and make that 
levee a magnificent breakwater, and render him, his 
merchandise and his home, his wealth and his splendor, 
perfectly secure against overflows for all time to come. 
This would, of course, bring joy and gladness to every 
farmer throughout the land. The language of these 
flood appropriations is: 'Blessed are those wiio make 
their homes upon the banks of great rivers or in the 
lowlands hard by, for if an overflow occurs Congress 
will see to it that no great loss is sustained, provided the 
money in the Treasury holds out.' The title of the bill 
under consideration should be changed to that of ' A bill 
to insure against water,' with the honorable Secretary of 
War as chief actuary. 

"It is, in fact, worse than the hypothesis I have used 
for illustration. It is confessed that the people to be 
benefited along the river are improvident negroes, to 
whom the countrv merchants will not make advances. 
It is notorious that when the Government begins to dis- 
tribute rations to that class of people they utterly refuse 
to work, and will live upon Grovernment rations as long 
as they can get them, and will not try to help themselves. 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 79 

It encourages thriftlessness and vagabondism. If there 
be anything in which the people of this country ought to 
be free it is in disposing of their own j^roperty or money, 
every man in his own way. The burdens of government 
are always onerous, and its revenues coerced from the 
people. Therefore, the people have the most vital inter- 
est in seeing to it that their hard earnings, which through 
the channel of taxation go to the Treasury, are applied 
to the purposes of government for which they are col- 
lected; and if gentlemen wish to popularize themselves 
by a munificent display of generosity and charity, let 
them do so at their own expense. When the test is ap- 
plied the country will be able to determine whether any 
of that benevolence which is now exhibited at public 
expense is pure demagogy or true charity. 

' The utter injustice of thus appropriating money, 
which is the common property of all, for the benefit of 
the few is manifest when we examine the precedents 
and practice of Congress. It illustrates with emphasis 
the wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in with- 
holding from Congress such powers. Why, sir, the 
cyclones which have recently swept through portions of 
Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and other 
States destroyed more property and killed or wounded 
more people than all the floods that have occurred in the 
United States within the last three years ; and yet, how 
strangely inconsistent! A resolution to appropriate 
1100,000 for their relief was smothered in the Senate. 
Why was this ? Were the unfortunate people who suf- 
fered by these cyclones, to the extent in many cases of 
all their property, and bodily disability by wounds, less 



; 



80 OUE GREAT MEN. 

worthy objects of the Nation's charity than the man 
whose house was carried away by the overflow of a river 
upon whose bank he had purposely erected it ? 

"Why should Congress be thus partial and unjust? 
There can be but one answer, and that is, the precedents, 
the ridiculous precedents, do not extend to cyclones ; they 
only authorize appropriations for relief from suffering 
caused by earthquakes or the overflow of rivers. Efi'orts 
are being industriously made to extend the precedents so 
as to relieve against storms, fire, locusts and grasshop- 
pers ; and Kansas, being a progressive, reliably Republi- 
can State, has half-way succeeded in establishing a prece- 
dent for appropriating money out of the Treasury to cure 
all the diseased cattle. The appeals were so overpower- 
ing that the Senate passed an appropriation of $50,000 
to stop the ravages of the foot-and-mouth disease, which, 
according to the prophetic statesmen, was contagious, and 
was going to kill all the cattle in the United States unless 
this big Government interposed and throttled it. But 
this bill, or resolution, met with some objection in this 
House. The veterinary surgeons have carefully exam- 
ined the fatal disease, and found it to have been caused 
by an unusually large deposit of ergot in wild oats, which 
had been gathered unawares in much of the hay which 
had been fed to the cattle, and not contagious at all ; and 
now the cattle-disease appropriation bill sleeps that sleep 
which knows no waking upon the Speaker's table. 

*'If the relief of a single section, district, city or 
community is for the general welfare of the United 
States, and therefore within the power of Congress to 
protect out of the Treasury, then the people of any and 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 81 

every village, hamlet and neighborhood, yea, every indi- 
vidual, in the United States are equally within that 
power, and it is the duty of Congress to extend that 
protection to them. If the power exists to extend such 
aid to large communities in time of great distress or mis- 
fortune, it extends likewise to small ones similarly cir- 
cumstanced ; and if aid is extended to the one, why not 
to the other? But such is not the practice. No instance 
can be found where Congress has made an appropriation, 
through charity, for the relief of one man, or a dozen 
men constituting a neighborhood, on account of a total 
destruction of their property by fire, storm, drought, 
caterpillars, or any other calamity which befalls men, 
except one case of earthquake in Caraccas, floods and 
grasshoppers. For of such are the precedents. 

"If a village or small community is swept away by 
a terrible tornado, as some have been — a thing which 
comes without previous warning, and against which men 
can not well provide — and one-half of the people residing 
there are killed or severely wounded, and shorn of all 
their means of subsistence, and Congress has the power, 
without awaiting a certification from the State that the 
suffering and destitution are beyond its power to relieve 
or control, to appropriate money for their relief, it is 
criminal neglect and damnable partiality not to do so. 
But there is no precedent. The logic of the position of 
those who claim such power, or favor such appropriations 
as that now proposed, or the two recently made for the suf- 
ferers by the Ohio overflow, answers for them the petition 
of the mangled, bleeding, groaning villagers in these 
words : ' We are sorry for you, but the precedents show 



82 OUR GREAT MEN. 

that you are really too insignificant and your calamity 
too small for Congress to notice.' 

" I boldly assert that any citizen who, by misfortunes 
usually called providential, has lost his property, and 
been reduced to utter poverty and want, has as much 
right to be relieved from the United States Treasury as 
any person who received benefits from the $500,000 
given for the relief of the Ohio sufferers; just the same; 
no greater, no less. The Legislatures of the great and 
prosperous States of Ohio and Kentucky were in session, 
and those of West Virginia and Indiana, I presume, could 
have been assembled in two days. No requests came 
from these to Congress; no certification of inability to 
take care of their suffering people and tide them over 
the flood ; and the city of Cincinnati protesting against 
aid, and saying by telegram that she would provide for 
her own people, there was a scramble in this Chamber 
between Republicans and Democrats from the river dis- 
tricts to see which could first obtain the recognition of 
the Chair to move a larger appropriation, or to speak his 
piece in exaggeration of the high waters and great suffer- 
ing. It presented a scene altogether at variance with the 
high notions of dignity and due deliberation which a 
new member thinks should usually appertain to the pro- 
ceedings of the House. The gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Hiscock], a leading Republican, twitted this side of 
the House as State-rights men and sticklers for the 
observance of constitutional limitations. He said the 
Constitution was not in his way at all, but he thought 
that on that particular measure it might give this side 
some trouble, and that he would like to hear from some 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 83 

members whom he named. Hon. S. S. Cox, admitting 
that the measure was outside of the Constitution, gave 
reasons for his affirmative vote similar to those given by 
Senator Crittenden concerning his for the Ireland resolu- 
tion in 1847. Mr. Cox said : 

" 'I know how j^ainful it is to discuss matters of this 
kind. Feeling has no words. Emotion is still. Our 
babble is the tossing buoy, indicating where the anchor 
is. Why not have voted this measure in graceful silence ; 
and if by our inconsiderate vote there may be any breach 
of the Constitution, God Almighty in His infinite good- 
ness will pardon and condone it.' 

" Mr. Reagan said that many things had been done 
in the history of the Government for which it might be 
difficult to find a precise warrant in the Constitution ; but 
when the things so done are not of that class in which 
the rights of the States or the liberties of the people are 
involved no great harm results, and that such emergen- 
cies were not contemplated by the framers of the Consti- 
tion, and now come up to be acted on by the representa- 
tives of the people, and all they can do in such cases is to 
avoid such a violation of the Constitution as trenches 
upon the powers and rights of the States, and upon the 
liberties and securities of the j^eople. 

" ' Here we stand, in the presence of a great calam- 
ity — no right of a State involved, the liberty of no citi- 
zen involved — and on such an occasion our attention is 
called to the dangers of violating the Constitution, and 
we are challenged for a warrant for the appropriation of 
money to relieve the people so situated. Why, sir, in 
the history of the action of Congress for the last twenty 



84 OUK GREAT MEN. 

t 

years, when the liberties of the people have been stricken 
down by the acts of Congress, when the rights of the 
States have been trampled upon and denied them, we 
have heard no protest from the Republican side of this 
House.' 

" To which Mr. Hiscock responded : ' Oh ! the gentle- 
man hears none now.' 

"The appeals made and the horrible condition of the 
flood sufferers was described with such sympathetic vivid- 
ness on all sides that it required extraordinary courage 
upon the part even of those members who believed it 
wrong to vote against it. Many, doubtless, whose con- 
victions were the other way were intimidated, morally 
coerced, into voting for it. The pressure was so great 
that, of the two hundred and forty members present, 
upon a call of the yeas and nays, only twelve were found 
to have voted against it. But a few days later, when 
the second appropriation was passed, twenty-nine mem- 
bers voted against it; and now that the flood has 
assuaged and all the suffering and destitution consequent 
upon it have been relieved, the Secretary of War 
reports an unexpended balance of upward of $125,000. 
Three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, the 
amount expended, could have been paid by either one 
of the great and wealthy States whose people were in- 
volved without draining the State treasury. But it is 
getting so that the jieople do not look to their State gov- 
ernments for help, and seem to think that the United 
States Treasury is on tap for the public, and gives forth 
the elixir of life for the healing of all the ills that flesh 
is heir tp, 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 85 

"We have a list of soldier or military pensioners and 
special civil pensioners, including the widows of the de- 
ceased Presidents, and some members of Congress desire 
to greatly extend these. There are also judicial pension- 
ers, under a law which allows all United States judges at 
seventy years of age to retire from service on full salary 
for life. Except as to honest pensions to soldiers, reason- 
able in amount, which I favor, I am opposed to the entire 
business of sj)ecial legislative favoritism. The fault and 
the correction of these evils lie with Congress. 

"As to these special appropriations called charities, 
my objection is two-fold : They are unconstitutional and 
they are unjust. If a great calamity befalls a people or 
city, such, for instance, as the Ohio overflow, when 
Congress is not in session, the waters assuage before the 
assembling of Congress, and no appropriation is made. 
There has never been one for, or on account of, any 
calamity, however destructive and deplorable in its con- 
sequences, if Congress is not in session and does not 
assemble until the suffering people have pulled through 
a space of forty days. The uncertainty, want of uniform- 
ity, spasmodic and partial character of such appropria- 
tions satisfy me that the framers of the Constitution did 
see these evils and purposely withheld from Congress the 
power to thus appropriate the revenues of the Govern- 
ment, and it is to be hoped that these unwarranted prece- 
dents will be followed no longer. 

"Air, fire and water, the three great elements essential 
to existence, when in unbridled commotion, are the source 
of destruction. Why should there be a difference if Con- 
gress is to relieve against the destructiveness of either? 



86 OUE GREAT MET^. 

Water is the least harmful and easiest avoided, as mem- 
bers of Congress are supposed to know. Perhaps their 
unfamiliarity with it prompts this strange inconsistency 
of conduct. 

" I am aware of the fact, and am sorry that candor 
compels me to admit it, that the Constitution is well- 
nigh an obsolete instrument in the legislation of Con- 
gress. I know, too, that in the estimation of some 
people a man subjects himself to ridicule who objects to 
a measure for unconstitutionality, notwithstanding every 
member here has sworn a solemn oath to support the 
Constitution. At the beginning of the present century 
the Democratic party was founded by Jefferson upon the 
doctrine, which has ever since been fundamental with it, 
and without which it could not survive a single day, that 
the Government is one of limited and enumerated pow- 
ers. Eliminate that doctrine from the Democratic creed, 
and I would not give the snap of my finger for all that 
would be left. How can men professing Democratic prin- 
ciples so recklessly and inconsistently set them at defi' 
ance in practice? It is not ignorance, but ambition^ 
which prompts it. It is traceable directly to that cause. 

"The Republicans are not inconsistent with their 
party principles when they vote for such appropriations. 
They are never restrained by any constitutional shackles. 
With them it is a question of expediency merely. The 
fundamental doctrine of that party is that this is a Nation" 
spelled with a big N, and that it is the judge of its own 
powers. They regard the Constitution as useful only in 
maintaining the forms of the Government. They hold 
that there is no restraint upon the power of Congress 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 87 

except these, and that the will of the majority is the 
supreme law. That party, true to its principles, adheres 
to paternal government, undertakes to be the guardian of 
all the people, and provide for their wants, regulate their 
domestic affairs, furnish them employment, regulate 
wages, bestow bounties to aid one industry, subsidies to 
aid another, and to a third a monopoly. It is the friend 
of monopolies, the champion of jobbery, the author of 
corporation insolence, the originator of bossism, believes 
in high taxation, and is the ally of the money power. 

"Such has been its teaching and tendency, with some 
honorable exceptions among its members, ever since it 
originated with Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. 
The Democratic creed opposes interference by the Gov- 
ernment in any manner with the domestic affairs of the 
people; does not believe that the Government can aid 
one class except at the expense of some other; opposes 
bounties, subsidies and monopolies; is in favor of low 
taxes, and an administration of government on the most 
economical basis, and looks with an eye of distrust and 
jealousy upon any enlargement of Federal power or dim- 
inution of the reserved rights of the States. Its slogan 
is, ' The people are best governed when governed least.' 

" But the Republican side of this Chamber says : ' Why 
talk you of the Constitution and the reserved rights of 
the States? They were settled by war twenty years 
ago.' Not so! Prior to the war States-rights men ad- 
hered to the doctrine that secession was a legitimate and 
proper remedy for the States to resort to in case the 
Federal Government invaded the sanctity of their re- 
served rights. The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions 



88 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of 1798 and 1799 declared that the States were them- 
selves the judges of infractions of the Constitution, as 
well as of the mode and measure of redress. There were 
but two questions settled by the war : One of these was 
African slavery, and the other was the right of a State 
to secede from the Union for any cause. These were 
submitted to the high court of force, and decided in the 
negative. I was on the losing side in that trial. 

"I, in common with my Confederate comrades, made 
the best fight we could, and with the same degree of good 
faith, manhood and courage with which we fought we ac- 
cepted the award, and will ever stand firmly by it. But 
that which was not involved was not decided, and conse- 
quently, si^eaking for my single self, I have not surren- 
dered on the character of this Government, and never 
will. I maintain that this Government is now just what 
it always has been since the ratification of the Constitu- 
tion : a federal republic, made so by that instrument ; a 
Government of limited and enumerated powers ; in other 
words, a great government without power further than is 
expressed or necessarily implied in the instrument of its 
creation. He alone who observes the Constitution and 
respects its provisions is a true friend of constitutional 
government. 

"If anything more were wanting than what I have 
already said to prove that a government of limited pow- 
ers is best, the annually increasing number and variety 
of bills brought before Congress demonstrate its utter in- 
ability to do the legislation which ought to be done ; and 
if it goes outside of the Constitution in order to enlarge 
its jurisdiction, it will but hasten the ultimate failure of 



WILLIAM C. GATES. 89 

the Government as a republic, to be succeeded by anarcliy 
or monarchy. The late war had no other effect on the 
Constitution than is shown by the last three articles of 
amendment. In all other respects the Constitution is the 
same, and these three did nothing more than to emanci- 
pate the slaves, enfranchise them, and make them citizens 
with equal political and civil rights with white people. 

"The late Chief Justice Chase, the most lucid and 
learned judge who ever sat upon the bench of the Su- 
prf^me Court of the United States, with the exceptions of 
Marshall and Taney, in the case of White vs. Texas, in 
one short sentence emblazoned upon the judicial record 
in letters of crystal splendor the true character of the 
Government of the United States when he declared that 
the Constitution established an indissoluble Union com- 
posed of indestructible States. The one can not subsist 
without the others. This declaration was at once the 
illumination and comprehension of a grand system of 
government as it is and as it was after the crucial test of 
a war that shook the continent ; yes, and as it will be 
recognized with advancing years, when the young men 
who are to succeed us, growing with the marvelous growth 
and development of the country, shall assume the en- 
larged responsibilities of their time. Let them find no 
bad precedent without a protest, and in the dim vista of 
the future this great Government will be more perfect, 
and its hundreds of millions of people will, in all that 
makes them great, surpass those of any nation, ancient 
or modern. This is my Government, and the only one to 
which I shall ever owe allegiance. I was once its honest 
enemy for cause. So were my people. With no repent- 



90 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



ance, no apology for the j^ast, we are now its friends, and 
cordially unite our voices with those who sing : 

" ' The star-spangled banner ! long may it wave 

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.' " 

Colonel Gates comes from that part of Alabama known 
as the wire-grass country, and is one of the most conspic- 
uous figures in that splendid section. His law practice 
has been all that he could desire, and he has succeeded 
in gathering a handsome competence. 

A man of powerful and magnificent physique, strong 
as the strongest in vigorous intelligence, and altogether 
insuppressible in his tireless energy. While unassum- 
ing, no braver man walks the earth, and he is generous 
to a fault. 





^aNh A 










W^12)IE ISi^MM 



Hon. wade hampton, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 




ADE HAMPTON was born in Charleston, 
South Carolina, the 28th of March, 1818. 
He was educated at South Carolina Col- 
lege, and after graduating there he studied 
law, which, after his admission to the Bar, he practiced 
with great success. 

He served in both branches of the Legislature of 
South Carolina, and was a member of the State Senate 
when South Carolina seceded from the Union. He re- 
signed his seat in the Senate for an active martial life, 
devoting all his energies to the cause of the Confederates. 
At the beginning of the conflict he lead the "Hampton 
Legion." He was wounded at Bull Run, and won, by 
his bravery, the commission of .Brigadier-General. He 
was wounded again at Seven Pines. He commanded the 
cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia, and in 1864 
was given the commission of Lieutenant-General. He 
was wounded the third time at the battle of Gettysburg. 
He was then ordered to South Carolina, and at the time 
of the surrender, in 1865, led the rear-guard of the Con- 
federate Army. 

His record during those trying years of carnage and 

C93) 



94 OUR GREAT MEN. 

disaster won for him a high place in the estimation of the 
people of South Carolina. 

He was the Democratic candidate for Governor of 
South Carolina in 1876, while Governor Chamberlain 
held that office by the power of the Republican party. 
Both claimed the election and both were inaugurated; 
President Grant standing by Governor Chamberlain, 
and furnishing United States troops to hold the State 
House. When President Hayes was inaugurated he 
recalled the trooj)s, and General Hampton was left in 
undisputed possession of the Governorship. In 1878 he 
was re-elected Governor, and the same year was elected 
United States Senator, taking his seat April 16th, 1879. 

Senator Hampton is the idol of South Carolina, and 
a man who well deserves the adoration of his constit- 
uents, always doing full justice to the interests of his 
State and the Nation alike. 

His speech on the death of Vice-President Thomas 
A. Hendricks is a touching tribute from one great man 
to the memory of another. Mr. Hampton said : 

" Mr. President, when death laid his inexorable hand 
on Thomas A. Hendricks, Vice-President of the United 
States, we had a striking and painful illustration of the 
truth that 'death loves a shining mark, a single blow.' 
Eminent alike for his abilities and his virtues; hon- 
ored wherever known, and loved best where best known ; 
crowned with almost every civic honor which a grateful 
people could bestow ; occupying one of the most exalted 
positions in our country, and blessed by a domestic hap- 
piness perfect as it was beautiful, he did indeed offer a 
shining mark to the insatiate archer. 



a 



WADE HAMPTOT^. 95 

''One of the great Roman satirists tells us that 'pale 
death, with impartial footsteps, knocks alike at the poor 
man's hut and the palace of kings,' and every page of 
history teaches the mournful truth that ' the paths of 
glory lead but to the grave.' How often in the last few 
months this solemn lesson has been brought home to our 
hearts ! The last days of summer saw a countless mul- 
titude with bowed and uncovered heads line the road over 
which the soldier President of this great Republic was 
borne to his last resting place, and the echoes of the 
funeral march that sounded his dirge had scarcely died 
away when the body of that other great soldier, General 
McClellan, was committed to its mother earth. 

"Again is the country called on to mourn the death 
of another illustrious citizen, and the Senate of the United 
States, of which he has been a distinguished and honored 
member, over which, as his last public duty, he presided 
with dignity and impartiality, pauses amid the routine of 
its daily duties to pay a tribute to the memory of its late 
presiding officer, and to give utterance to the sorrow 
which fills every patriotic heart in our country for the 
death of our honored Vice-President. It is eminently fit 
and proper that this should be done, and my only regret 
in joining in this tribute is that my contribution to it must 
necessarily be so unworthy of him to whose memory it 
is off*ered. It would be difficult for me under the most 
favorable conditions to say anything worthy of this 
theme, and the task has been rendered impossible since 
we have listened to the eloquent words just uttered by 
the Senator from Indiana. I can not venture even to 
glean in the fields reaped so thoroughly by him, and I 



96 OUE GREAT MEN. 

must content myself by expressing in a few sincere, heart- 
felt words the resi^ect, the esteem and the admiration 
felt by our i^eo2:>le for Mr. Hendricks while living, and 
the profound grief caused by his untimely death. These 
feelings, I am sure, are not confined to one section or to 
one party, but are shared by all classes wherever honor, 
integrity, virtue and piety, such as marked the character 
of the illustrious dead, are respected and venerated. As 
a proof of the truth of this, Mr. President, we need no 
stronger evidence than the scene which now meets our 
view in this Chamber, when members of both parties vie 
with each other in heartfelt expressions of esteem for the 
stainless character, public and private, of Mr. Hendricks. 
While this testimonial is honorable to those who offer it, 
and deserved by him to whom it is given, it seems to me 
that we can draw from it a lesson profitable to us all if 
we heed it. It should teach us to be charitable in our 
judgment of those who differ with us. Fortunately, in 
this case, we need not invoke charity in the judgment 
pronounced on the character of our dead Vice-President, 
for we can challenge for it universal respect and admira- 
tion ; but should we not in all cases deal charitably with 
the living as well as with the dead? We have been told 
on divine authority that faith, hope and charity are the 
cardinal virtues, and the greatest of these is charity. 
Xot that charity which merely relieves suffering humanity, 
but that broader charity which judges leniently the mo- 
tives and actions of men, which tells us to do unto others 
as we would have others do unto us — that sublime char- 
ity inculcated by our Saviour. In the friction caused by 
political differences, and in the heat of party strife, we too 



WADE HAMPTON. 97 

often indulge in a bitterness toward our opponents as 
unjust as it is uncharitable. Motives are impugned, 
actions misrepresented, facts distorted and character 
assailed in this partisan warfare, and yet when one of the 
great actors in the political arena falls all animosities 
are buried with him, and in the awful j^resence of death 
friends and foes alike strive to do justice to his merits 
and to pay homage to his memory. Recognizing this 
fact, which docs honor to human nature, can we not agree 
to disagree without malice? Can we not believe that 
men may be conscientious even though they diifer with 
us? In a word, can we not be charitable in our judg- 
ment of our fellow-men? 

"Human nature is but clay 
Truly blessed by charity. 

These suggestions have naturally suggested themselves 
to my mind by the scene presented here to-day, and 
by others of a similar character which have so often 
of late transpired in this Chamber. Time and again, 
during my brief service here, have I seen these mournful 
ceremonies re-enacted, and on each have members of 
opposing parties, clasping hands over the grave of a col- 
league, paid willing homage to his virtues, while the 
mantle of charity was thrown over his faults. These 
scenes, which prove the brotherhood of mankind, and 
show that 'one touch of nature makes the whole world 
kin,' have left a deep impression on my mind, and that 
impression was indelibly fixed by the extraordinary spec- 
tacle presented at the funeral of General Grant. We all 
remember the imposing and touching ceremonies of that 



98 OUR GREAT MEN. 

mournful occasion, and certainly no one who witnessed 
them can ever forget them. But the feature that struck 
me as the most significant, the most impressive, was the 
fact that among those who bore the body of the great 
captain of the Union Army to the grave were Confederate 
soldiers, who a few brief years ago were his mortal ene- 
mies. 

"Democrats and Republicans, men who wore the blue 
and those who wore the gray, met at his tomb to pay the 
last tribute of respect to his memory. Here to-day we, 
while honoring ourselves by doing honor to the memory 
of our late Vice-President, see exhibited the same kind 
and generous feelings which marked the obsequies of the 
dead ex-President. If, then, our political and personal 
animosities cease at the grave, should we not be tolerant, 
considerate and charitable in the judgment we pass on 
our contemporaries, even though they be our political 
opponents? All of us, sooner or later, must claim from 
the living that tender recognition which we now bestow 
on the dead. For our hearts, 

" ' Like muffled drums, are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave ; ' 

And to that bourne we are hastening with steady and 
rapid steps. Fortunate, indeed, shall we be if, when we ^ 
reach that bourne, we may be able to meet the Great ''| 
Judge with a conscience void of oifense toward God and 
man, as was his whose loss the country deplores. 

" ' He, dying, leaveth as the sum of him '| 

A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit; 



WADE HAMPTON. 99 

"Where good is quick and mighty, far and near, 

So that fruits follow it. 
No need hath such to live, as ye name life; 
That which began in him, when he began, 
Is finished ; he has wrought the purpose through 

Of what did make him man.' 

" He has, indeed, left a life-count closed, without one 
blot or stain to mar its fair page, and in every relation of 
life he proved himself, in the highest and best sense, a 
man. Firm and sincere in his convictions, true to his 
friends, liberal toward his opponents, conscientious in the 
discharge of every duty, a patriot and a Christian, he 
surely deserved, and doubtless has received, that highest 
reward that can be bestowed on mortal or angel, the final 
decree of the Judge of all living, ' Well done, thou good 
and faithful servant.' It is one of the inconsistencies, 
perhaps rather one of the infirmities, of human nature, 
that in spite of all the blessed assurances of Christianity 
we grieve when those who are near or dear to us are 
taken away by death. We know that, to those who are 
prepared to die, death is but the gloomy portal through 
which they pass to the realms of eternal happiness, and 
this conviction should teach us that all grief for them is 
selfish, but neither philosojDhy nor religion can soothe the 
anguish which wrings our hearts when a dear friend or a 
beloved relative is borne to the grave. 

" * The blood will follow where the knife is driven ; 
The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.' 

" Thus, when the good are called home to enter on the 
true life beyond the grave, we grieve not for them, but 



vj 



100 /\ OUR GREAT MEN. 

for ours^ives. It is well with them ; they have exchanged 
the sorrows, the suffering, of this world for the glories of 
heaven — a daily death for life eternal. There is a beau- 
tiful thought expressed by one of our oldest poets which 
seems to me peculiarly appropriate when a good man, 
fipe in years and rich in honors, passes away from earth. 
Speaking of our misuse of language, he says: 



y " ' We call here life. * * * 



* 



Angels who live and know what 'tis to be, 
Who all the nonsense of our language see ; 

Who speak things, and our words, their ill-drawn pictures scorn, 
When we, by a foolish figure, say, 
' Behold an old man dead ! ' then they 

Speak properly, and cry, ' Behold a man-child born ! " " 




i 



Hon. OMAR D. CONGER, 



OF MICHIGAN. 




I MAR D. CONGER, of Port Huron, was 
born in Cooj^erstown, New York, in 1818. 
In 1834 his father removed to Huron 
County, Ohio. He received his education 
at Huron Institute, in Milan, Ohio, and at Western 
Reserve College, where he graduated in 1842. He was 
particularly interested in the study of Geology, and for 
several years was in the employ of the Geological Survey 
of the State of Michigan. In 1848 he commenced prac- 
ticing law at Port Huron, Michigan, which has since been 
his home. 

In 1850 he was elected Judge of the St. Clair County 
Court, and was elected Senator in the State Legislature 
of Michigan in 1855, and was re-elected the two suc- 
ceeding terms, the third term serving as President pro 
tempore of the Senate. He was elected a member of 
the Constitutional Convention of Michigan in 1866. In 
1864 he was a Presidential elector on the Republican 
ticket. 

He was elected a Representative to the Forty-first, 
Forty-second, Forty-third, Forty-fourth, Forty-sixth and 
Forty-seventh Congresses. March 4th, 1881, he took his 

(101) 



102 OUR GREAT MEN. 

seat ill the United States Senate, to which he had been 
elected as a Republican. 

In the following we give a portion of Mr. Conger's 
plea for Alaska: 

" ]\Ir. President, when Alaska was received from the 
Russian Government there were a majority of the people 
in that Territory — all those called Aleuts — living on the 
islands awav from the mainland, and far over toward the 
Asiatic coast, who were educated, who were Christian- 
ized, who had schools in every hamlet, and who lived as 
civilized people live in the United States, in houses with 
their proper furniture and proper conveniences. They 
had their school-houses ; they had their churches ; they 
all belonged to the Greek Church, and were under the 
care of the Russian Government and that church for their 
civilization and their education. There was another class 
living along the coast and up in the edge of the mount- 
ains who were wild, unruly Indians, prone to drink, 
prone to robbery and theft. There were on two little 
islands in Behring's Bay a population of Aleuts who car- 
ried on the fur-seal fisheries there, numbering some four 
or five or six hundred people, who live there to-day, and 
have for the last twenty years, under the control, and car- 
rying on the business of, the Alaska Commercial Com- 
l)any, who lease these two little islands up in the mists 
and fogs of Behring's Straits, catching the fur-seals. 

" From the time these people became citizens or 
inhabitants of a Territory belonging to the United States, 
this Government never has, until within the last two 
years, made any eifort whatever to continue the education 
of these Russian-Greeks, the Aleuts ; never a dollar 



OMAR D. CONGEE. 103 

appropriated for their education or for any purpose con- 
nected with their religion, their civilization, their liveli- 
hood, their protection, in any way. 

" We shall have received in the course of a year or 
two into the Treasury of the United States as much 
money as this Government gave for that whole Territory, 
from two little obscure islands in Behring's Bay, far north 
of where these Aleuts live. Three hundred and sixty 
thousand dollars a year for twenty years has been received 
in clean cash into the Treasury of the United States as a 
royalty upon the fur-seals and other furs caught in that 
region — paid into the Treasury of the United States with 
but a very trifling expenditure to keep our agents there 
to see to the delivery of the seals and their protection. 

" Now, sir, the generosity, the magnanimity, of the 
United States in regard to those i^eople is shown in the 
fact that some sixteen years ago, when the fur-seal fish- 
eries of these islands were offered for sale at j^ublic auc- 
tion, the law provided that the company which got the 
islands, with a monopoly of the seal fisheries, should 
maintain schools on the islands for the Aleuts therein, 
and give them a common-school education. The Grovern- 
ment did nothing; the United States contributed not a 
dollar to the education of any of the people of that Terri- 
tory. The Government of the United States has received 
and will receive back into the Treasury at the expiration 
of the twenty-years' lease the $7,000,000 which was paid 
for the whole Territory of Alaska. We have made that 
country a source of revenue ; we have subjected its prod- 
ucts to royalties for the support of our Government, and 

out of the five or six million dollars that we have received 
7 



104, OUK GREAT MEN. 

from these two little islands in Alaska we never have 
contributed, until two years ago, one single cent for the 
education of the people of Alaska. 

" These Aleuts are not, in any sense in which we speak 
of them in connection with education, Indians. They were 
originally Esquimaux, coming from Russia, then becom- 
ing, through generations, a distinct people, civilized. Chris- 
tianized, educated, living in houses, with their church in 
their midst and their schools with them. Of course, when 
our Government received that Territory from Russia by 
treaty, we were obliged to take care of the welfare of its 
inhabitants. It was not deemed necessary to put into a 
treaty made with the great Republic of the United States, 
so religious, with its people so educated, with its loud 
boasts in favor of the general and universal education of 
its people, a requirement that the Government of the 
United States should give some means of continuing the 
education of these people which the Russian Government 
had provided for. These several thousand Aleuts live in 
hamlets scattered along these islands for 2,000 miles, 
stretching from the neighborhood of Sitka far out through 
eighteen or nineteen degrees of longitude, almost over to 
the Asiatic coast. They have been left there to be edu- 
cated by their own people in their own little hamlets, by 
their priests in the Greek Church, as they were before. 
Now we are asked to extend to those people the common 
advantages for learning that we do to the people of other 
portions of the United States. 

" So, if there is one dark stain overhanging the Amer- 
ican Republic Avhich the nations of the earth may look 
upon and taunt us with, it is that we received from a 



OMAR D. CONGER. 105 

barbaric government — from what we sometimes call a 
half-civilized government — a portion of its territory, with 
people in it educated, quiet, civilized, living, sleeping and 
eating in their own houses, with the furniture of reason- 
ably good houses in their midst, living in hamlets of 
from fifty to five hundred inhabitants, with their own 
churches and their own school-houses ; that we received 
that people from the Russian Government, and have 
never contributed one cent to their education, or per- 
mitted them, by any form of law, to educate their own 
children. Sir, these Aleuts have not gone back into 
barbarism. These Aleuts have not forgotten the sign of 
the cross. These j^eople have not forgotten to assemble 
themselves on the Lord's day to worship in their own 
form of worship the God that created them. They have 
not forgotten their own birthright, their own education, 
their own religion. They have not engaged in any act 
whatever unworthy of an educated Christian people. 

"There are thousands of them on the islands from 
Oonalaska on toward the west, and they are living there 
supporting themselves by the fisheries, and by fur-catch- 
ing, and by such means as they are able in that inhos- 
pitable clime to live by ; and a large part of their earnings, 
and a large part of what they may accumulate over and 
above the actual necessities of life, they ]3ay for their 
schools and for their churches, for their mental and moral 
improvement to-day. That is the stain upon my JS'ation, 
and that is the disgrace to our Republic; and if foreign 
nations understood, and if the philanthropists of foreign 
nations knew, how we oppressed these people, they could 
array it against the Republic more strongly than any 



IQQ OUE GREAT MEN. 

other matter that could excite prejudice against our Oov- 
eriiment and against our people. 

"Sir, what has become of the little appropriation 
which was made two years ago for that country, $25,000 
for the Indians, and fifteen or twenty thousand dollars to 
help along their schools ? The money was there, but I 
say it with shame for my country, the men who were 
sent to take charge of its distribution, with the powers 
that were granted under the Territorial law or district 
law which we passed, if the reports are all true, joined 
with those wdio would encourage drunkenness all along 
the line of the shore Indians. They did not reach, thank 
God, the Aleuts, who live in a remote and a too-inhos- 
pitable region to be brought under their influence. The 
very man to whom the money was given to expend among 
these people was four times imprisoned and once sent 
into a dungeon by the authorities of the United States. 
Sent there to promote government, sent there to promote 
order, sent there to enforce good laws, sent there to give 
their influence as representatives of our people in favor 
of temperance, of sobriety, of education, and I might 
almost add, except that it would be met with scorn, in 
favor of religion of some kind or other, the tone and feel- 
ing of some of the oflicers of the United States was more 
in favor of distilling what they call in that country 
koochinoo, a vile intoxicating drink, than it was in favor 
of good legislation or good order or government. The 
facts in regard to that matter shall one of these days 
come before the Senate. They have already come before 
the Executive of the country, and I am thankful, for one, 
to give all due praise for the fact that when the present 



OMAR D. CONGER. 107 

Executive of the United States obtained information 
showing how some of the officers of that Territory, ap- 
pointed under the Territorial laws, had dishonored their 
position, and done the direct contrary of what the people 
of the United States desired them to do, he removed 
them and put other, and we have some reason to hope 
better, men in their places. 

" If there is a place on the earth beyond the bounds of 
civilization removed from the influences which govern the 
good people of the United States in their homes, in their 
thoughts, in their education and in their religion, it would 
seem that if we send agents there to make that benighted 
country a part of our own and like our own, to give 
it education, to give it intelligence, to give it good govern- 
ment, they join with the worst element that can be found 
on that coast, and encourage the worst license and the 
most dissipation. That has been the characteristic of 
that region through the years that are past, and I speak 
of it now because I invoke beforehand what the world 
demands, and what the good people of the United States 
demand, a strict investigation of the manner in which 
the officials of the United States now removed have car- 
ried the flag and borne the authority and wielded the 
sword and governed that people. It is a disgrace to the 
human race anywhere — among the Kaffirs of Africa or 
the Patagonians of the South, or wherever barbarity or 
cruelty, or a reckless disregard of the advancing civil- 
ization of any people, has come to our knowledge. I 
have some documents on that subject which are not appro- 
priate to this occasion; I have some references to the 
needs and necessities of the people called Aleuts, diflbr- 



108 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ent from the other Indians of that country, and as to 
the negligence with which they have been treated, which 
I shall take occasion, on some proper opportunity, to 
present to the Senate and invoke its consideration." 



^J2 



Hon. ALFRED H. COLQUITT, 

OF GEORGIA. 




ILFRED H. COLQUITT, of Atlanta, was 
born in Walton County, Georgia, April 20th, 
1824. He is an alumnus of Princeton Col- 
lege, New Jersey, graduating there in 1844. 
He then studied law, and was admitted to the Bar in 
1845. During the Mexican war he served as a staff 
officer, with the rank of Major. He was an active mem- 
ber of the Thirty-third Congress. In 1859 he was a mem- 
ber of the Legislature of Georgia, and a member of the 
Electoral College on the Breckinridge ticket in 1860. 

He was a member of the Secession Convention of the 
State of Georgia. He entered the Confederate service 
as Captain, and had risen to the rank of Major-General 
before the close of the war. 

In 1876 he was elected Governor of Georgia for a 
term of four years, and under the new constitution was 
re-elected for a term of two years. He was elected to the 
United States Senate at the close of his term as Governor, 



ALFRED H. COLQUITT. 109 

and he is popular in the Senate, as well as in his Atlanta 
home, where he is a great temperance worker. 

On the bill, $800,000 for mail subsidies, Mr. Colquitt 

said: 

"But, Mr. President, I distrust the reception which 
the majority of this body will give my prescription for 
our troubles. I rather incline to the belief that they will 
go on piling up a superfluous production of home manu- 
facture, and then making the vain attempt to force this 
vast mass down the throats of our home consumers. We 
have offered us, however, a nostrum in this subsidy of 
1800,000. By this it is expected to accomplish the work 
of relief. The amount of trade which this subsidy is ex- 
pected to create must be of very modest proportions. 
Eight hundred thousand dollars, it is true, should pay for 
a great deal of postage, and would if in the run of the 
luck of the experiment the postage should offer. We 
have heard of the Battle of the Books, but here to-day we 
are inaugurating the battle of the letters. England, so 
Senators allege, has secured almost a monopoly of South 
American trade because of her prodigal expenditure in 
subsidizing her mail ships. 

" We are advised to make this appropriation because 
the leading powers in Europe have expended great sums 
in fostering a splendid mail service with the States whose 
trade it is so desirable to secure. It seems to be, in the 
opinion of Senators, a question of expenditure, a sharp 
contest in which the potency of subsidy is invoked. The 
more lavish the appropriations the greater the trade, seems 
to be about the proper statement of the case. What, sir, 
is to be the inevitable result of the policy which this sort 



110 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of legislation is to fasten on us? This seemingly harm- 
less sum of $800,000 is to be the excuse and precedent for 
the granting of numberless millions. If it is true, as has 
been claimed, that because of England's great expendi- 
ture, because France and Germany have spared no ex- 
pense for mail ships, that therefore they have superceded 
us in the markets we are so anxious to secure, what is the 
task we have set for ourselves in this mighty rivalry? 

"If money is to champion our ambition in this race, 
what a field are we contesting ! England, Germany and 
France, stimulated by rivalry and jealousy, would go on 
increasing their subsidies, furnished out of resources 
almost fabulous. If we attempted to overmatch the out- 
lay of these great powers, their obvious resort would be to 
larger and still larger subsidies, and in this desperate 
conflict of interest and ambition unimagined millions 
would be lavished upon an enterprise which at last is one 
of individual concern, and by which, let matters go as 
they might for our Government, capitalists and corpora- 
tions would be enriched. If we begin this conflict, national 
pride may take us a long way beyond the bounds of pru- 
dence and the dictates of sterling business sense, and we 
shall find at last, after the loss of immense treasure, that 
we began wrong ; that our diagnosis of our ailment was 
all at fault, and the last state of the patient was worse 

than the first. 

* * m m in ^ 

"In concluding what I have to say upon the question 
before us, I would remark that it may prove fortunate 
that in this unexpected way admissions have been made 
of the business conditions of this Union which call so 



ALFRED H. COLQUITT. Ill 

loudly for grave consideration. The discussion of these 
admitted facts has come up collaterally, and yet our con- 
sideration of them was natural, and we might say inevita- 
ble. The reasons given by Senators for the subsidy asked 
for by implication at least supposed a state of things, 
as regards our external trade, which is lamentable indeed, 
and is to my mind the necessary outgrowth of our reve- 
nue system. It is useless for us to attempt, by such 
expedients as the one we are now considering, to redress 
the blunders we are committing by that system. These 
are only palliatives, if they may be called such, and can 
effect no radical or permanent redress of our troubles. 
Resist as we may, the impregnable Democratic doctrine 
of a tariff for revenue, an honest and economical admin- 
istration of the Government, and a fair chance, and that 
only, for every bread-winner in the land, will triumph at 
last and assert itself as the only true 'American system.' 
" These considerations are conclusive with me, and I 
think they should be especially persuasive with the mem- 
bers of this body on this side of the House who have 
been placed in power upon platforms, speeches and declar- 
ations at the polls of what they meant to procure by a 
Democratic administration, the object being retrenchment 
and reform." 



JOHN H. REAGAN, 

OF TEXAS. 



,®Ii^lK^e^| 



i^v.. 



U^^j^jOHN H. REAGAIS', of Palestine, who rep- 
resents the Second Congressional District 
of Texas in the United States Congress, 
was born in Sevier County, Tennessee, 
October 8th, 1818. He received a common-school educa- 
tion and a partial collegiate course, but did not graduate. 
In 1839 he made Texas his home, and has since then 
served well the Lone Star State of the South-west. 
Professionally, he is both lawyer and farmer. He was a 
Deputy Surveyor of public lands from 1839 to 1843. He 
was elected to the State House of Representatives for 
two years in 1847, and in 1852 was elected Judge of the 
District Court for a term of six years. He resigned the 
office in 1856, but was re-elected for another term of six 
years. In 1857 he was elected a Representative to the 
Thirty-fifth Congress from the First District of Texas, 
and in 1859 was re-elected, to the Thirty-sixth Congress. 
He was a delegate to the Secession Convention of Texas 
in 18G1, and was elected one of the Deputies to the Pro- 
visional Congress of the Confederacy. He was appointed 
Postmaster General of the Provisional Government of 
the Confederacy the 6th of March, 1861 ; and in 1862, 

(112) 



JOHN H. EEAGAN. 113 

when the permanent organization of the Confederate 
Government was effected, he was reappointed to that office, 
which he held till the surrender. For a short time sub- 
sequent to the close of the war, he was also Acting Secre- 
tary of the Treasury of the Confederate Government. 
In 1875 he was a member of the State Constitutional 
Convention. He was elected to the Forty-fourth, Forty- 
fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth and Forty- 
ninth Congresses. 

" Interstate Commerce " has long been a pet theme 
of Mr. Reagan, and we give here portions of one of his 
speeches on that subject in the House of Representatives 
of the United States Congress. 

The House had under consideration the bill to 
establish a board of commissioners of interstate com- 
merce and to regulate such commerce; and on the sub- 
stitute offered thereby by Mr. Reagan to regulate inter- 
state commerce, and to prohibit unjust discriminations 
by common carriers, Mr. Reagan said : 

" We have, according to the best authority, now more 
than one hundred and twenty-five thousand miles of 
railroad, representing a nominal capital of more than 
17,000,000,000, and a real capital of probably a little over 
13,000,000,000. 

" The roads do the principal part of the carrying of 
the vast internal commerce of the United States. The 
gentleman from Massachusetts, Governor Long, esti- 
mates, as I understand him, the interstate commerce to 
be of the value of $15,000,000,000 a year, and I do not 
think this estimate too large. This interstate commerce 
is subject to just such charges and discriminations as the 



114 OUR GREAT MEN. 

railroads see fit to make, whether just or unjust. And 
their power to levy unjust exactions on this commerce, 
and to make unjust discriminations as between persons 
and places, is not controlled or restrained by any legisla- 
tion. State laws do not and can not aifect them, and we 
have no Federal laws for that purpose. They may take 
away from whole communities all the profits of their 
labor and capital, leaving the people only enough to keep 
them at work, by charging, as they claim the right to do, 
whatever the commodity will bear. They may enrich 
one man and impoverish another in the same business 
by their unjust discriminations and rebates. They may 
destroy the business of one town or city, and build up 
another by their unjust discriminations between places. 
They may enrich one corporation to a fabulous extent, as 
they have the Standard Oil Company, and in doing so 
destroy rival corporations by the allowance of rebates to 
the one and denying them to others. 

" In the legislative investigation in New York three 
years ago it was shown that the railroad companies had 
allowed and paid rebates to the Standard Oil Company 
to the amount of $10,000,000 in sixteen months, and yet 
we have no legislation to prevent or to punish these great 
wrongs committed by this vast power. In the world's 
history there is no instance of the exercise of such jdow- 
ers afi'ecting so many people and such great interests as 
these which are not controlled and are not regulated by 
law, except alone the American railway system. As- 
sumptions have been made that the common law fur- 
nishes remedies for these evils. I will show as I proceed 
that it does not. 



JOHN H. REAGAN. 115 

" The question now addresses itself to each member 
of this House : ' Do you mean to show to your constit- 
uents by your votes that you intend this condition of 
things shall continue ? ' or do you mean that your votes 
shall show that you will aid in furnishing a remedy for 
these great evils ? 

^jp ^ T^ ^ * V 

" The gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Anderson] fitly 
and appropriately exposed the fallacy of Governor Long 
about the railroads of the United States only paying 
about three per cent, on investments in them, and showed 
that in reality they pay nearly ten per cent. I need not 
repeat what was said by him. 

" The gentleman from Massachusetts, Governor Long, 
also arraigns the Reagan bill as a 'cast-iron, inflexible, 
perfunctory method ; ' ' mere hrutum fidmen; ' ' a dead 
letter;' which 'would only embarrass business, increase 
rates and add to the burden of the people's cost of 
transportation.' 

" I appeal to the sense of justice and fairness of the 
House and of the country whether this characterization 
is either sincere, or fair, or just, as against a bill whose 
substantive provisions are few in number, simple in nature 
and easily understood by anyone who desires to under- 
stand them. He says : ' Hardly any remedy of this sort 
is proposed that does not exist in common law.' Is this 
a true and fair statement? The common law does not 
give triple damages for the wrongs provided against. 
My bill does. The common law does not provide either 
a civil or penal remedy for allowing rebates, drawbacks, 
etc. My bill gives both a civil and penal remedy. The 



116 OUR GREAT MEN. 

common law does not prohibit charging more for a 
shorter than for a longer haul. My bill does. 

"The common law does not prohibit pooling. My 
bill does. The common law does not require schedules 
of rates to be posted up. My bill does. 

"And yet, in the face of these facts, the gentleman 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Long] says : ' Hardly any rem- 
edy of this sort is proposed that does not exist at common 
law.' I am persuaded that the real reason why those who 
champion the interests of the railroads do not want my 
bill to pass is that it gives plain, statutory remedies not 
given at common law, and provides for their easy and 
effectual enforcement in the courts of ordinary jurisdiction. 

"On the subject of the long and short haul, the gen- 
tleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Long] has illustrated his 
views by two examples, plausible and deceptive enough, 
but which are only calculated to deceive. 

"He wishes to know if no more should be charged 
for carrying freight over the bridge at St. Louis, which 
cost many millions of dollars, than for a like distance 
over a road built at the ordinary rate of expense, and my 
worthy friend from Missouri [Mr. Clardy], who has just 
addressed the House, propounds the same inquiry, I am 
sorry to say ; and whether no more should be charged for 
carrying freight through the Hoosac tunnel than for a 
like distance over an ordinary road. 

"Now, under the provisions of the substitute bill in 
reference to the first illustration, as much may be charged 
for a given amount and kind of freight (if the road is 
continuous from New York to St. Louis) from East St, 



JOHN H. REAGAN. 117 

Louis to St. Louis as from Indianaj^olis, or from Colum- 
bus, or from Pittsburgh, or from New York, to St. Louis ; 
and surely the railroad would not suffer any wrong from 
the effects of this bill if it could charge as much for the 
few miles crossing the Mississippi River as for all the 
distance from one of the places above mentioned. And 
this is what the bill allows. But the bridge at St. Louis 
is a road to itself, separate from the other railroads, and 
makes its own charges, and would be only bound like 
others not to make unjust discriminations in its rates. 
The same may be said of the Hoosac tunnel illustration, 
except that it is not a separate road. And the other 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Rice], in illustrating 
his objection to the provisions of this bill in relation to 
the long- and short-haul clause, asked if a car-load of 
flour could be hauled from St. Louis to New York for 
fifty cents a barrel, would it be reasonable to compel a 
train of cars to stop seventy-five miles this side of St. 
Louis and charge no more for a barrel of flour from there 
than from St. Louis. He, like the balance of the gentle- 
men who combat the provisions of this bill, finds it neces- 
sary, in order to ground an argument, to state an hypo- 
thetical and impossible case. 

" Who ever heard of a train of cars stopping to take 
on a barrel of flour anywhere, or who ever expects to 
hear of it except from the advocates of railroad monopo- 
lies? And who can doubt or deny that a freight train 
can take on a car-load of flour, or several car-loads of 
flour, seventy-five miles east of St. Louis and carry it to 
New York at as little expense as if its cars were hauled 
from St. Louis? 



118 OUR GREAT MEX. 

" The gentleman from Massaclmsetts [Mr. Rice] says 
if the Reagan bill is enacted into a law it will be more 
desi:)otic than the Czar of all the Russias. I do not know 
how to characterize such an argument, except to suppose 
that it springs from the exuberant fancy of the youthful 
and untrained statesman from Massachusetts. Certainly 
it could not be said by a grave, serious man with expecta- 
tion that anyone would believe it. 

"And he gave us another specimen of his humor, 
Massachusetts Representative as he is, by warning us 
against the danger of consolidation and centralization 
found lurking in the Reagan bill. Doubtless, the House, 
like myself, was a little surprised to find any Republican 
from Massachusetts an advocate of the doctrine of strict 
construction and State's rights. He says there are fear- 
ful dangers in any attempt which may be made to 23rotect 
the people against the discriminations, exactions and 
injustices of railroad corporations, and finds an asylum 
for the re230se, security, j^rosperity and happiness of the 
people in a railroad pool, which erects one huge monopoly 
out of several small ones, denying to the people all com- 
petition in transportation, and subjecting them, without 
remedy, to such demands as the railroads may make upon 
their property. He has no fear of the consolidation and 
centralization of the thousands of miles of railroads. His 
fears are awakened only by the efi'ort to compel them to 
do justice by conservative, just and wholesome legislation. 

" My friend from Ohio, General Warner, illustrates 
his idea of the impolicy of the provision of my bill which 
forbids charging more for a shorter than for a longer haul 
by instaJicing a coal mine with inferior coal farther from 



JOHN H. EEAGAN. 119 

market as compared with one of better coal nearer to 
market. He wants to know if justice would not require 
that the poor mine farther from market should have 
lower rates of transportation than the good mine nearer 
the market, in order to equalize the profits of the two. 
He might with this view have gone further, and inquired 
if a man with a poor farm should not have cheaper rates 
of transportation than one with richer land, in order to 
equalize the profits of the two farms. 

" Is it possible that we are to be treated to the assump- 
tion in this House, and in the discussion of this great sub- 
ject, with a statement which implies that a part of the 
business of railroads is to equalize the profits of inferior 
and good mines and of poor and rich farms ? The state- 
ment of the proposition is its condemnation, and shows 
to what resorts able and ingenious gentlemen are driven 
to combat a just and reasonable provision that more 
ought not to be paid for hauling a given amount and kind 
of freight one hundred miles than should be paid for haul- 
ing it one thousand miles. 

"The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Davis], the gentle- 
man from Michigan [Mr. Horr], and the gentleman froni 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Boyle], gravely informed the House 
that the Reagan bill, if passed into a law, would discrim- 
inate in favor of the JNTew York Central road and against 
the Erie road, against the Pennsylvania road and against 
the Baltimore and Ohio road, because, they allege, the 
grain from the lakes can be carried by vessels to Buffalo, 
Kew York, and from thence to New York City, on a road 
wholly within the State of New York, and would, there- 
fore, be taken from under the operation of the provisions 



120 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of the Reagan bill ; while on the other roads named it 
would be under the operation of the Reagan bill. 

"Now, in the first place, the gentlemen have all the 
time contended that through rates were cheaper than 
local rates, and, if this be true, the through rates on inter- 
state commerce, instead of being higher, would be lower 
than local State rates; but their view rests upon the 
assumption that we are regulating railroads instead of 
the conmierce that passes over them. 

" The commerce which is shipped from a point in one 
State to a point in another State is interstate commerce, 
no matter by what mode of conveyance it is carried ; and 
the courts have repeatedly decided that this interstate 
commerce is beyond the reach of State legislation, and 
can alone be regulated by authority of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. So that if merchandise is shipjDed from Duluth, 
or Chicago, or Toledo, or any other place on the lakes, 
and is destined to New York, or any other place outside 
of the State in which shipment is made, it is interstate 
commerce. It can not be regulated by authority of State 
laws, and is only liable to be regulated by act of Congress ; 
and whenever it passes over a railroad in any portion of 
its transit, it becomes interstate commerce carried on a 
railroad, and would come fully within the regulations pre- 
scribed in the Reagan bill as to such commerce. 

"It is assumed that by some fraudulent device or 
trick of management it might be shipped to Buffalo, and 
from that point sent by a second shipment as freight 
under the State law. The Reagan bill provides against 
this very character of subterfuges. A portion of its third 
section reads as follows : 



JOHN H. REAGAN. 121 

" ' That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons 
engaged in the carriage, receiving, storage or handling 
of property as naentioned in the first section of this act 
to enter into any combination, contract or agreement by 
changes of schedule, carriage in diiferent cars, o?* by other 
means, with intent to prevent the carriage of such prop- 
erty from being continuous from the place of shipment 
to the place of destination, whether carried on one or 
several railroads.' 

" But what motive could there be for shippers wanting 
to invoke State rates for through commerce instead of 
through rates? We all know that local State rates in 
both New York and Pennsylvania are much higher rela- 
tively than through rates on Western freight, so that w^e 
would be compelled to suppose that shippers would sub- 
ject themselves to higher rates of freight simply in order 
not to come under the influence of an act of Congress 
which would promote their interests. This is the sort of 
assumption and sort of reasoning necessarily resorted to 
in the efforts to defeat the Reagan bill. It can surely 
deceive no sensible man. 

"As evidence that the officers and attorneys of the 
New York Central Railroad do not believe what these 
gentlemen say on this subject to be true, they have 
united earnestly and vigorously with the attorneys and 
managers of other railroads in trying to defeat this bill, 
which they surely would not have done if they believed 
it would give their road the advantages over the other 
roads which these gentlemen assume would be given it by 
the Reagan bill. 

"The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Davis] and the 



122 



OUE GREAT MEN. 



o-entleman from Michigan [Mr. Horr] say that the Reagan 
bill would drive all the Western commerce away from 
our railroads and cause it to go over the Canada roads. 
Mr. Dcpew and others used this argument before the 
committee, and after the answer which was made to it 
there, it was hardly to have been expected that the argu- 
ment would have been repeated before this honorable 
body. The Grand Trunk Railroad, of Canada, from 
Detroit, Michigan, by way of Montreal, Canada, to Port- 
land, Maine, is 856 miles long. Its connection by way of 
Montreal with Boston, Massachusetts, is a little longer. 
Its extension from Port Huron, Michigan, to Chicago 
is 330 miles. This added to 856 miles makes the dis- 
tance from Chicago to Portland 1,186 miles. In the 
greater portion of its length it runs through a coun- 
try sparsely populated and with a limited commerce. 
Its equipments and the amount of its rolling stock are 
nothing like so great as are either those of the New 
York Central, the Erie, the Pennsylvania, or the Balti- 
more and Ohio roads. 

" From these causes, as well as because of its greater 
length, and the greater interruption from frosts and 
snows, and because it crosses the St. Lawrence River 
twice, at one place on ferry-boats and at another on a 
long bridge, it can not carry as large amounts of freight, 
or carry that freight as cheaply, at paying rates, as 
cither of the above-named four trunk roads on the south 
side of the lakes and of the St. Lawrence, and it does not 
go to the markets to which the owners of our Western 
produce wish to send their commerce. By the New York 
Central and by the Erie and the Pennsylvania Railoads the 



JOHN H. REAGAN. 



123 



distance between Chicago and New York is about nine 
hundred miles. The distance to Baltimore is more than 
two hundred miles shorter. The equipments of these 
roads are the best ; their rolling-stock is abundant ; they 
pass through densely populated States of great wealth 
and with very large local business ; they avoid the cross- 
ing and recrossing of the St. Lawrence River. 

"These roads are nearly three hundred miles shorter 
from Chicago to New York than the Grand Trunk from 
Chicago to Portland. These three trunk roads south of 
the lakes, as well as the Baltimore and Ohio road, have in 
many respects the decided advantage of the Grand Trunk 
road in fair competition. Either of them is prepared 
to carry more freight, to carry it cheaper and more expe- 
ditiously, and to better markets than the Grand Trunk 
by way of Montreal ; and yet the gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. Davis] and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Horr] are dreadfully alarmed at the danger of the com- 
petition of the Canada roads. 

"But it may be said the branch of the Grand Trunk 
road, coming from the North-west to Buffalo, furnishes a 
route but little longer between Chicago and New York 
than the trunk lines south of the lakes. It is longer, 
however, and for more than two hundred miles it passes 
through a country with much less population, wealth and 
commerce than that through which the competing lines 
south of the lakes pass. And this line, too, has its long 
ferriage at Port Huron, and has again to cross the 
Niagara at Buffalo, and it would be dependent on the 
New York Central and the Erie for its connections at 
Buffalo with New York, and hence could not compete 



124 OUR GREAT MEN. 

with them for the Chicago freights against their consent. 
It has no independent road to 'New York City. 

****** 

"These facts show there can be no danger of compe- 
tition of the Canada roads with our American roads ; but 
it is alleged that as the American roads under the Reagan 
bill can not change their schedules in less than five days, 
that the Canada roads might, during that period, under- 
bid them for freight, and that this would be disastrous to 
their interests. In the first place, none of the railroad 
systems are anxious for railroad wars, and no road under 
sensible management would seek a railroad war for the 
advantage of freights for five days. In the next place, 
shippers from the West have no interest in sending their 
freights by the Canada roads, as they could not reach the 
markets south of Boston at any rate without being 
dependent upon the trunk roads south of the lakes with 
which they would have to connect; and it must not be 
forgotten that under the Reagan bill, if it should become ^ 

a law, the railroads could charge such rates for freight 
as they might see proper on all Western freights coming 
to Eastern ports just as they do now. -| 

" The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Horr] also says | 

that the right of the railroads to discriminate in their I 

freight rates enables them to build up the commerce of ■' 

the country, not to destroy it; to enrich the country, not i 

to impoverish it. That is the right to allow their friends, 
such as the gentleman from Michigan, to send their ship- 
ments of freight to market at half-price, and to charge | 

his neighbors, to whom they feel under less obligation, ":' 

double rates, would be building up the commerce of the 



JOHN H. EEAGAN. 125 

country, not destroying it; enriching the country, not 
impoverishing it. Such is the characteristic logic by 
which advocates and defenders of the great corporations 
attempt to persuade this House and the country that ine- 
quality, unjust discriminations, and harsh and oppressive 
exactions in freight rates U23on the commerce of the coun- 
try, is the way to build up its commerce and to enrich 
the country, 

"I call attention to two points made by my honorable 
friend from Vermont, Governor Stewart. He calls up 
the illustration used by others of the long and short 
haul as between Memphis and 'New Orleans by way of 
Winona, Memphis and New Orleans, both being on the 
Mississippi River, and Winona being an intermediate 
inland point. We were told by the gentleman from Mis- 
sissippi [Mr. Barksdale] that the railroad carries cotton 
from Memphis to N'ew Orleans, four hundred and fifty 
miles, for one dollar a bale, and that they charge three 
dollars and a quarter a bale for hauling cotton from 
Winona to T^ew Orleans, a little over three hundred 
miles. The gentleman from Vermont says this is right, 
and that if the railroads are not j^ermitted to charge 
more from Winona than from Memphis to New Orleans 
they could do no through business. 

"It is plainly seen from this statement that to do a 
through carrying business from Memphis to New Orleans 
involves the necessity of compelling the people of Winona 
to pay a large part of the freight charges for other people 
from Memphis to New Orleans, or else that the charges 
from Winona to New Orleans are unreasonably high, and 
therefore unjust. We must accept one horn or the other^- 



126 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of this dilemma. There is no escape from it; and neither 
is allowable under any rule of justice and fairness. His 
difficulty in this case is that God made the Mississippi 
River, it cost men nothing ; while men made the railroad 
at great expense, and that railroad transportation can not 
be made as cheap as water transportation ; and no at- 
tempt, either by discrimination in rates by railroads or 
by legislation, to take from the people the advantage of || 
cheajD water transportation in order to increase the profits 
of the roads, or for any other purpose, should be allowed. 

* « * 4t Ht 4^ 

"During the Forty-fifth Congress, when this subject 
was first being seriously discussed in the House, Gov- 
ernor Cox, of Ohio, then a member of the House and a 
friend of this bill, and myself received a number of letters 
from railroad j^residents and superintendents approving 
the provisions of the bill, both because it would protect 
the people against the wrongs complained of, and because 
its tendency would be to benefit the railroads by prevent- 
ing railroad wars. 

" And this would undoubtedly be one of the necessary 
effects of the bill. It would compel the railroad compa- 
nies to adopt regular and honest business methods, such 
as are employed by persons engaged in any other large 
business, instead of employing such methods as they now 
do to cheat one another and the public. It would compel 
them to rely on the business legitimately belonging to 
their several roads, and would prevent them from endeav- 
oring to take from each other, by rebates and cut rates, 
business which would legitimately belong to other roads. 
Most of the railroad wars spring from the attempts of one 



JOHN H. REAGAN. 127 

road to take from another or other roads business which 
does not belong to it, thus provoking counter efforts of a 
similar character. One of the great objects and one of 
the undoubted effects of my bill would be to prevent this. 

*«(• «^ «i* ^ «^ 

^> ^* 'x* ^* *r* 

"Several of the gentlemen who have been engaged in 
this debate have spoken of the gradual reduction of 
freight rates in past years as if it resulted from the vir- 
tuous intentions of the railroad companies ; and some of 
them have compared the cost of railroad transportation 
with the old-time cost of transportation by wagons, as if 
the railroad companies had in their beneficence, and as a 
matter of good will to the people, caused this reduction 
of rates. It is not to them, but to the inventors and im- 
provers of the steam-engine and other appliances of 
transportation by steam, that we are indebted for cheap 
railroad freights ; and the gradual reduction of the rates 
of freight is due, not to the beneficent purposes of the 
transportation companies, but to the improvements con- 
stantly going on in rolling-stock, in facilities for handling- 
freight, and to the substitution of steel for iron rails ; to 
the constantly-increasing amount of freight and travel, 
and in some measure to the competition of different roads 
and systems of roads, and of water-ways. 

%lt vl« Oj> ^U *ir ^U 

^» #X* 'T* *** 'T* 'T 

" In conclusion, I have to express my gratification 
that after years of struggle and labor we have at last 
got this matter before the people's representatives, where 
they, on their responsibility to their constituents, can act 
upon it, and provide such legislation as will remedy the 
evils complained of, and compel obedience to just and 
necessary regulations." 



Hon. LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR, 

OF MISSISSIPPI. 




UCIUS Q. C. LAMAR, of Oxford, Missis- 
sippi, is a native of Putnam County, 
Georgia. Here he was born the 17th of 



September, 1825. He was educated at Ox- 
ford, Georgia, until he entered Emory College, where he 
graduated in 1845. He then commenced the study of 
law in Macon, Georgia, under the guidance of Hon. A. H. 
Chappell, and two years later was admitted to the Bar of 
Georgia. 

In 1849 he removed to Oxford, Mississippi. He was 
elected Adjunct Professor of Mathematics in the State 
University of ^Mississippi, and also held the position of 
assistant to Dr. T. A. Bledsoe, editor of The Southern 
Review, which he resigned in 1850 to return to Coving- 
ton, Georgia, to there resume the practice of law. In 
1853 he was elected to the Legislature of Georgia. The 
f(»llowing year he removed to his plantation in La Fay- 
ette County, Mississippi. Here he was elected to the 
Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixtli Congresses, and resigned in 
18G0 to accept a seat in the Secession Convention of 
Mississippi. 

In 18G1 he entered the Confederate Army as Lieu- 

(128) 







^^ ^^• 



SLWPIUS il. €'. IL^M^M. 



LrCIUS Q. C. LAMAE. 131 

tenant-Colonel of the Nineteenth Regiment, and was pro- 
moted to the rank of Colonel. In 1863 Jefferson Davis 
intrusted him to represent the Confederate cause in 
Russia. 

He was elected Professor of Political Economy and 
Social Science in the University of Mississippi in 1866, 
and in 1867 he was transferred to the Professorship of 
Law in that University. 

In 1876 he was elected United States Senator, and 
served in that capacity till President Cleveland appointed 
him Secretary of the Interior, the 4th of March, 1885. 

He was a leader in the Senate. His speeches in the 
Senate did much for the South in bringing back the old 
feeling of unity. As Secretary of the Interior he has 
made an admirable officer, and has clearly demonstrated 
that President Cleveland was not mistaken in his choice. 

The home life of Mr. Lamar is simplicity itself. He, 
with his family, when at their home in Mississippi, enjoys 
that freedom from public care and ostentatious social life 
which many in public life desire, but which few ever 
realize. Their hospitality is known and appreciated by 
many, yet the days come and go with but little change in 
their quiet home. 

Here follows a summary of a speech by Mr. Lamar, 
delivered while in the Senate, on the negro question. 
Mr. Lamar said : 

" Mr. President, I ask the attention of the Senate for 
a very few moments to reply to some of the remarks 
made by the Senator from Minnesota. I do this with 
reluctance, because I am departing from a purpose I had 
formed not to address the Senate upon any subject at this 



'4 



132 OUR GREAT MEN. :^ 

session if I could possibly avoid doing so. N'or would I 
dej^art from that purpose upon this occasion but for two 
considerations : 

"In the first place, the Senator from Indiana, whom I 
am proud to call my friend, has requested me to give my 
views upon the subject under discussion, doing me the 3 
honor to think they will aid in dispelling the errors and d 
prejudice with which persistent misrepresentation has \ 
surrounded it. In the second place, if the extraordinary '; 
speech just delivered had been intended to produce any • 
impression or influence upon this body, or to aifect its J 
legislation in any manner, I should have allowed it to \ 
pass in silence ; but, sir, the words which the Senator has - 
uttered this day do not die upon his lips. They do not \ 
perish in the echoes of this chamber. They are, indeed, ^ 
winged words ; and where do they go ? Far hence amid .j 
the great cities of the West; all -over the broad farms | 
and in the prosperous villages of that center of the future | 
power and life of the country. And for what purpose? J 
If, sir, one tithe of what he said will be believed, men and ; 
women bound to us of the South by the sacred ties of 
race, of blood, of country and of common Christianity, will 
be led to believe that over that vast section of country 1 
there is a population and a land in which justice has no i 
courts, religion no temple, humanity no home. 'i 

"But they go farther. Charged with a poison more 
subtle and fatal than our own malaria, they are borne on 
the wings of the lightning to every broken hearthstone 
of the South. The i)lanter who in poverty and amid dif- 
ficulties is striving to upbuild the waste places, where 
labor is the only salvation of the negro as well as of the 



LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR. 133 

white man, turns away in despondency, feeling that this 
burden of hate is too heavy to bear. The untutored and 
impulsive negro hears them, and waxes reckless in the 
belief that in the law, property and order of society there, 
he finds the agencies of his own oppression and degrada- 
tion. The shrewd political adventurer, who once sub- 
jected that people to all the suffering and oppression 
which corruption could invent and tyranny inflict, catches 
their sound with joy, for they are to him a new hope for 
a new lease of plunder and spoliation. 

"I do not object, and never have objected, to the 
utmost scrutiny (provided it be fair and truthful) into 
the affairs of the Southern people, especially in their 
relations to the black race ; and, while I should not have 
asked such an investigation as this, I do not regret that 
the Senator from Indiana has called it forth, and I feel 
indebted to him, as the whole country will, for the facts 
which that investigation has developed, and his fair and 
masterly exjoosition of them. 

" I can add nothing to his argument, and will not 
detract from its force and conclusiveness by any attempt 
to follow on the same line. In order that I may not be 
misunderstood, I wish to assert once for all that this 
movement of emigration, which has been so falsely and 
so ridiculously styled the ' exodus ' of the negroes from 
the South, never had any terrors for me, nor have I 
looked upon it with either alarm or deprecation. If it 
be a normal movement of emigration growing out of a 
healthful demand for that kind of labor at the North, 
and a healthful sufficiency of its supply in the South to 
meet the demand, it should be regarded as a natural and 



134 OUR GREAT MEN. 

vigorous play of the industrial forces of this country, 
fraught with no permanent evil either to the country 
which they leave, the emigrants themselves, or the land 
to which they go. If it be, as the Senator from Indiana 
has demonstrated it to be in this instance, a movement 
inaugurated and carried on by combinations and associa- 
tions for political purposes and for party ascendancy, in a 
great measure, while I would regret the injury suffered 
by the victims of the delusion, I should nevertheless 
think that there are benefits of an equivalent and com- 
pensating character attached to this movement. 

" Sir, the exposure of these negroes to hunger and the 
rigors of a Northern climate, to the conflicts with the 
hostile forces of nature to which they are subjected for a 
bare subsistence, though painful and lamentable to con- 
template, will develop a force of character, an energy of 
will and a spirit of perseverance under difficulties and 
misfortunes — qualities which their easy life in the genial 
climate, bounteous soil, under indulgent employers of the 
South, has suffered to lie dormant. 

" If it is good for these people to go, the voice of every 
patriot, and of every statesman, and of every man whose 
heart is not callous to the claims of humanity, will be, joy 
go with them. Even if they are deluded, the movement 
will still be an indication of aspiration, of energy, of a 
desire to improve their condition, which is always a hope- 
ful and fiivorable sign of progress in any people. And 
it is certain, if it is a delusion on their part, the move- 
ment will be of short duration, for the means of exposing 
that delusion are abundant and easily ajDplied. 

" I was reading the other day a work upon the subject 



LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR. 135 

of new departures in political economy, in which the 
author traced the causes of great revolutions that had 
been wrought in the methods of producing and accumu- 
lating and distributing the wealth of the world. The 
chief of these, he said, were the electric telegrajih and the 
application of steam to locomotive machinery ; that they 
had brought the ports of demand and the ports of supply 
all over the world into such immediate and direct con- 
tact as to dispense with the old instrumentalities of com- 
merce, and brought producers and consumers into speak- 
ing distance. 

" Sir, the same agencies are at work more powerfully 
and producing more striking results in the distribution 
of labor. They are j^i'oducing revolutions greater than 
any that have hitherto been produced in the exchange of 
the world's commodities. The quickness with which 
communication can be sent to different parts of the world 
is bringing laborers everywhere into direct contact with 
employers, so that Avhenever the price of wages is de- 
pressed in one locality immediately a demand for labor 
is found in another, and without the intervention or the 
aid of any associations — political, benevolent, railroad or 
otherwise. 

"That agency is at work upon this very point at this 
very time. Even now, while the Senator was reading his 
diatribe before this body, the planters of Mississippi, as I 
know well, are in direct communication with the emigrant 
laborers who are in Kansas and in Indiana, and they look 
upon those bodies of laborers as more accessible sources 
of supply, from which laborers can be obtained on better 
terms and with more facility than either Alabama or 



136 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Georgia. While these gentlemen are negotiating and 
plotting, the laborer and planter, face to face, are talking 
with each other over their heads, and they have only to 
listen to the tickings of the telegraph to hear the death- 
watch of their own departing schemes and opportu- 
nities. 

"The Senator from Minnesota, confessing in advance 
the weakness of his case, endeavors to shield his fail- 
ure behind the paltry complaint that his side had not a 
full and fair opportunity to be heard. Such a charge, in 
the face of the facts, is only puerile and petulant. Admit- 
ting that the number of witnesses called by the minority 
of the committee was less than that called by the major- 
ity, an examination of the record will show that, in actual 
amount of testimony attentively and patiently heard, far 
more than one-half was from witnesses who avowed their 
Republican sentiments and affiliations. The j^rinted tes- 
timony amounts to 1,568 pages ; of that the documents 
occupy only 368 pages, the Republicans 1,152 pages, the 
Greenbackers 36, and the railroad men 12. 

" Eleven of the witnesses which the minority called 
poured forth into this record over five hundred pages of 
their twaddle, and whatever of deficiency existed was 
amply made up by another species of statements which 
will strike the future examiner of this record with sur- 
prise, but will not be, I presume, embodied among the 
valuable results of his researches. They consist of cer- 
tain very dogmatic assertions, made by some of the gen- 
tlemen of the committee, who seemed to have supposed 
they were appointed to state facts and not to inquire into 
them. Under the form of an interrogatory, there were 



LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAE. 137 

assertions of a very positive character to which the 
assent of the witness was invited or his denial challenged. 
The ^ facts ' thus suggested are indeed the most startling 
and striking in the book, and nothing which any witness 
testified to equaled the statement that forms the pregnant 
suggestions of the questions which the honorable Senators 
put to the witnesses. 

"But, so far as the real testimony is considered, no 
one can read it with close attention without coming to 
the conclusion that there was nothing in the condition of 
the States from which this emigration proceeded to pro- 
duce such a result as driving its labor from the employ- 
ments in which it was so actively and profitably engaged, 
and nothing in the condition of the States to which this 
current of emigration moved that invited such an influx 
of labor there; upon the contrary, that there was much 
in the pressure of labor upon employment in these States 
last mentioned, and the consequent depression of wages 
and want of employment, to discourage and repel such 
influx, and even to roll it back to the locality from which 
it started. It also, sir, discloses, beyond any question or 
cavil, that the emigration itself was in large measure one 
of those instances, becoming very frequent in modern 
times, of powerful combinations entered into for the ag- 
grandizement and enrichment of their projectors, which, 
by the magnitude of their operations, can contravene for 
a time the natural laws and economic principles which 
govern the production and distribution of a country's 
wealth — combinations that never fail to result in mischief 
and disaster, as this one did, to all except those for whose 
benefit they were formed. The proof, sir, which the Sen- 



138 OUR GREAT MEX. 

ator from Indiana has brought together upon this sub- 
ject is absolutely impregnable, and stands unshaken by 
the angry rhetoric of the Senator from Minnesota, which, 
in dashing against it, has only foamed out its own imbe- 
cility. 

" There is no doubt about the fact that the testimony 
which has been adduced is contradictory. Gentlemen 
can bring witnesses here who will swear whatever is 
wanted for the benefit of their party. It is not the 
first instance in which the records of investigating 
committees are made the channel through which false- 
hood and slander and calumny throughout that section 
empty all their kennels of pollution upon the floor of 
the Senate. 

" But, sir, no man can read this testimony without 

coming to the conclusion, beyond a doubt, that this exodus, 

so called, or migration, of twenty-five thousand people (to 

put it at the biggest figure they state) — an exodus from 

a country of four million blacks — no one, I say, can come 

to the conclusion that it was caused by any demand for this 

labor, either in Kansas or Indiana, or by any oi^pression 

and suffering of laborers in the States from which they 

are coming. 

♦ **♦♦»♦ 

" I am not prepared to say to the blacks, stay at home; 
I am prepared to say to them, 'Go forth if you have 
aspirations to better your condition, and to think you can 
do so by throwing yourselves into the conflicts and active 
competitions incident to the civilization of the North.' 
We know that for every one that leaves the South we 
shall have a white immigrant from the North better 



LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR. 139 

skilled in labor and more advanced in intelligence and 
political experience. They are already coming to us 
from Indiana and Kansas and Michigan, and are con- 
tributing no little to the material development of our 
country. 

" Sir, movements of population possess qualities of 
interest in our country apart from that which now 
attaches to this mere local question. The activities of 
the present age are scientific and mechanical. Among the 
nations of the world this country is one of the most sci- 
entific and mechanical taken as a population. As a 
result from this we are a vigorous, active, restless people, 
abridging even human life by the attrition and waste 
incident to our perpetual activities. This has been so 
characteristic of the country, and so uniform, that it 
ceases to be novel with us. We not only bring emigrants 
here in excess of all other people in the world, but when 
they come they move, and the native population moves, 
and the whole country, if we look at it in reference to 
this question, is a popular ocean, whose waves are never 
at rest. This motive to movement and migration is the 
result of the growth of intelligence and mechanical 
development. 

" Now, in this tendency of the negro to emigrate we 
have a hopeful sign that he is catching the spirit of 
American energy and enterprise, and taking on Amer- 
ican habits and ideas, and there is therefore nothing in 
the movement which is not creditable to the institutions 
of the country and creditable to the race that is immedi- 
ately affected. 

" There is another cause which has contributed to the 



140 OUR GREAT MEN. 

migratory tendency of the negro. There has been some 
disappointment among the negroes, arising from their 
failure to realize the sanguine expectations of acquiring 
homesteads and accumulating property. This has origi- 
nated in the A^ery nature of things, and is not chargeable 
to any political consideration, nor does it reflect at all 
unfavorably upon the people of the South. The im- 
pression is sought to be made that their disappointment 
arises from inadequate wages and from dishonest and 
oppressive treatment by their employers. Neither is 
true. As a class they are the best paid laborers to-day 
of the same grade in the world. Statistics will conclu- 
sively show this to be the case. 

" The negro is disappointed because of the condition 
of things in the South that would exist in any other 
country under the same circumstances, and because of 
the disposition and habits the negro himself has acquired, 
the purchase of his supplies on credit. G-etting credit so 
readily as he does, he runs up that credit too high; he 
uses it too recklessly, as is shown by the very accounts 
which were produced before the committee. The traders 
who charge him extravagant prices for these supplies do 
not belong to the native communities there, whether of 
planters or small white farmers, native merchants, or the 
negroes themselves; they generally come from foreign 
lands or the North. From this habit of not paying cash 
for what they get they do not really know how greatly 
their accounts are growing, and buy beyond their means 
without being conscious of the fact. They are not 
cheated, legally and technically, but they make needless 
and extravagant purchases in the use of the license of 



LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR. 141 

credit with those cross-road traders, who would take, and 
do take, the same advantage of ignorance and credulity 
in the white man. Ignorant and credulous people, white 
or black, are treated in the same way at the North and 
the world over. 

"Under such circumstances the negroes can not but 
find difficulties in acquiring homesteads or accumulating 
property ; in fact, the race is yet in its infancy, and sim- 
ply going through its novitiate experience, an experience 
that all people have to go through. The negro is really 
learning in a school that will ultimately teach him more 
effectually than academies and colleges ; and in this con- 
nection the lesson is being taught to our planters as well. 
Their attention is being brought to this subject, and con- 
ventions and associations are held for the jDurpose of 
protecting their laborers from the greed and the avarice 
of the small traders. 

"If this or any other cause, however, shall create a 
desire among them to try their fortunes in other sec- 
tions of the country, there is no reason to believe that 
our Northern brethren would find such a population, even 
in considerable numbers, a drawback or drag upon their 
civilization. They are physically an extraordinary race, 
and stand, either in work or play, exposure to any kind 
of weather ; and I believe they have already shown they 
can endure the rigors of a Northern climate. They are 
excellent laborers in a certain sphere. It is true they 
are awkward and infacile as agricultural laborers outside 
of cotton culture, and not adapted to food-producing hus- 
bandry, but upon public works, or any large undertakings 
which require the supervision of intelligent superintend- 



142 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ents, there is not a more efficient class of laborers in 
the world. 

"They are getting educated also — not as well edu- 
cated as the laboring population of the North, for our 
country is sparsely settled, and our people poor from the 
desolations of the late war. We have not as good school 
systems ; but in every State we have colleges, and acade- 
mies and schools, and the facilities for education are as 
good for the black as for the white, and they are under 
the influence of the Christian religion, as Bishop Simp- 
son says; they are believers in it, and can not be 
considered a barbarian race, or a barbarian immigra- 
tion wherever they go. For that reason I would not, as 
a Southern man, hinder their emigration, nor, as a North- 
ern man, repel it. 

"As to the emigration of twenty-five thousand from 
the South, why, sir, it is a drop in the bucket. There 
are more white men that have gone out of Mississippi 
than that number, and many more than that number 
have come into the State since the war, and fully fifty 
thousand negroes have come into Mississippi during the 
same period. This late movement, therefore, is no indi- 
cation of deep, grievous wrong perpetrated upon the one 
side, or great sufi'ering on the other. Taking the most 
unfavorable view of it, it will j)rove a state of things at 
the South precisely similar to that which exists at the 
North, and in every part of the civilized world, to-wit, a 
depression and want of prosperity among those who 
work for wages and a desire to better their condition by 
summary methods, by abandoning the work in which 
they are immediately engaged and embarking into other 



LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR. 143 

and new fields of enterprise and industry. It is no evi- 
dence of wrong and oppression ; for, if so, wrong and 
oppression run riot at the North, where every day's 
paper tells of the strikes of laborers in larger numbers 
and of longer duration than that which has been signal- 
ized at the South by the name of exodus. 

"I have an account that I have just clipped from a 
paper before me of a strike of five thousand laborers in 
one community, and the daily papers come laden with 
notices of strikes and lock-outs in that section. But a 
short time ago there was a strike which ran through 
many great Northern commonwealths, and it resulted 
not only in armed mobs, but in the burning and pil- 
laging of $5,000,000 of actual productive capital and 
the derangement of the entire transportation of the 
country. 

" There is one difi^erence in the treatment of these in- 
dustrial disturbances. All the literature of the North, all 
the reviews, all the philosophical discussions, all the ap- 
peals from the pulpit, all the harangues from the stump, 
and all the speeches from senate chambers and houses of 
representatives, are against the strikes there, and in favor 
of the interests of property and order. Sir, bring to bear 
upon the laborers in the North the same enginery that 
is brought to bear against the industrial system of the 
South, and yours would topple into irreparable ruin in a 
short time, and carry with it the most precious institu- 
tions of society in that section ; and the very fact that, 
with all these appliances against Southern labor, only 
twenty thousand men have been jostled out of three 
States into two, shows the firm basis upon which capital 



144 OUR GREAT MEN. 

and labor stand in relation to each other in the Southern 
States ; and what they teach in this way is true in point 
of fact. 

" The fact that Sir George Campbell refers to is one 
which can not be argued around, nor argued under, nor 
argued over, and that is that the production of the South 
in the articles to which negro labor is directed is greater 
now than it ever was when they were slaves, and is con- 
stantly increasing. Look at the vast amount of the prod- 
uct of the cotton crop, which substitutes the basis of your 
exchanges and commerce with the nations of the earth, 
and tell me if such a product of labor applied to capital 
can be shown in any country where tumult, disorder, in- 
security of person and insecurity of property and inse- 
curity of labor prevail. It is an impossibility. The Sen- 
ator from Indiana never uttered truer words than when 
he said that the very existence and presence of that man 
Stubblefield here was itself a refutation of all the charges 
against Mississippi of oppression and injustice ; * that he 
is a great fact that could not have existed in his prosper- 
ous condition and honorable station but for the protection 
of equal and just laws.' It is one of those facts which, 
like a single pulsation, reveals to the skillful physician 
the condition of an entire organism, and enables him to 
say that 'In this constitution there is no disease, no 
decay, no symptom of convulsion.' 

*' Sir, no man, no laboring population, will 23I0W the 
earth and work under a Southern sun, and live upon 
stinted means, toiling from morning till night, and laying 
his wearied limbs upon the bed of rest only to resume 
the same round of labor with the morning light, unless 






LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR. ' " 145 

he feels secure in the result of every stroke witliiwhich 
he smites the yielding earth. Security of property, secur- 
ity of person, perfect serenity of mind and brave hopeful- 
ness of heart are necessary conditions of a successful 
application of labor and caj^ital, and as necessary to the 
laborer as to the capitalist. 

" Sir, who can contemplate for a moment this vast 
production of the South, giving so large a proportion of 
the exports of this country, really the basis of our ex- 
changes with the world, in the midst of tumult and strife, 
and the conflict of races, and of fraud, force, murder and 
arson ? 

" I notice, sir, that the witnesses who have been 
brought to prove the oppression and the fraud perpe- 
trated upon the negro labor of the South, have introduced 
what they called 'specimen contracts,' showing the lien 
of the employer upon the product of the laborer for his 
rent and advances ; and long accounts have been laid 
before the committee as those which were brought against 
the negro laborer and tenant. Sir, these accounts tell 
their own story. Whatever may have been the relative 
status of the two parties at the end of the year, they show 
that during the entire year the laborer had command of 
such supplies as he and his family needed. They show, 
sir, that he could get flour and meat, and sugar and 
coffee, and clothing, for himself and his children, and 
medical supplies, so that the total result proves that, 
whatever misfortune may sweep over the planter, what- 
ever losses he may incur by the venture, the laborer 
through the w^hole year has shelter, food, raiment, medi- 
cal supplies and the comforts of life, free from any con- 



146 OUR GREAT MEN. 

tingencies and any misfortune, and an assurance of the 
same during the next year. 

" But, sir, there is another fact connected with this 
matter which is of profound interest. You may talk, 
sir, of the dignity of labor, but labor can be put nowhere 
upon such a dignified and equitable basis as it is in Mis- 
sissippi, where every laborer has an indefeasible lien 
upon the products of the farm, paramount to that of the 
landlord or the supply-man, for the payment of his wages 
or of his reward. Happy the country and happy the 
people where the toiling man has in the law of the land 
a mortgage upon everything which bears the impress of 
his toiling hand ; and the result is, sir, that in that coun- 
try so much abused there is not a man, woman or child 
that suifers from the pangs of hunger. There is not a 
man, sir, who has muscle and a willingness to use it, even 
though he may be out of employment and out of means, 
that can not earn his breakfast, or his dinner, or his 
lunch whenever he chooses to do so, and that in advance 
of the work to be j^erformed. Say what you please, sir, 
that must be a happy condition of society which is free 
from that leprosy of nations, chronic pauperism. 

" The Senator from Minnesota has referred to the 
laws of Mississippi. I assure the Senator that there is 
no law in Mississippi framed with any reference to the 
end which he has intimated. He can say that, by a 
certain sort of construction and perversion, such a result 
as he speaks of is possible; no such results are actu- 
ally produced, and no such objects were ever had in view 
by the legislators of Mississippi. 

''In looking over this testimony and seeing that this 



LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR. 147 

point was made in regard to the statutes of Mississippi, 
I took occasion to examine the code of Minnesota to 
compare it with that of my own State. I must confess 
that in going over that code I found it admirable in all 
its provisions. I could find no fault with it as a code of 
laws. I pronounce it 'simply perfect in its own resource,' 
and the gentleman is beyond the reach of my retort on 
this subject. I can say, however, that I take as much 
pride in whatever honors his State as he does himself. 
At the same time there are some things which, under the 
perverting criticism that the Senator has applied to the 
statutes of Mississippi, would render his State an unfit 
place for negro immigration. 

" Why, sir, under the code of Minnesota, whoever 
cuts down or in any way injures a tree growing upon the 
private lot of another, or carries away any wood from 
such lot, is punishable with ninety days' imprisonment 
or one hundred dollars fine. If he should take fruit of 
any kind from an orchard in another man's inclosure, he 
is subject to two months' imprisonment and a fine of fifty 
dollars. If he cuts down a tree — if one of our negroes 
should go in there shivering with cold, and should do what 
he always does in Mississippi, take enough fuel to warm 
himself and little ones — he would be indictable and pun- 
ishable with fine and imprisonment. 

"Now, sir, if I was to follow the style of the Sena- 
tor's criticism of Mississippi statutes, I could show that 
these laws of Minnesota would produce a sad havoc 
among our negroes emigrating there, accustomed as they 
are to helping themselves to the fruits and fuel of their 
employers and landlords. 



148 OUR GREAT MEN. 

" Mr. President, the Senator is simply mistaken. The 
people of Mississippi are not the people he thinks them. 
If he will examine the statistics of 1870, the Senator 
will be surj^rised that of "all the States in this Union 
there are but few, perhaps not any, that show a larger 
proportion of people above the age of ten years actually 
engaged in productive industry than Mississippi." 



-**>^#^- 



Hon. JOHN D. LONG, 

OF MASSACHUSETTS. 




|OHN D. LONG, Representative from the 
Second Congressional District of Massachu- 
setts, was born at Buckfield, Oxford County, 
Maine, October 27th, 1838. He received a 
good common-school education in the schools at Buckfield, 
then attended Hebron Academy, Maine, and finally Har- 
vard College, where he graduated in 1857, at the age of 
nineteen. 

He taught for two years in Westford Academy, Mas- 
sachusetts. He studied law in private oifices, and at 
Harvard Law School ; was admitted to the Bar, and has 
won a reputation as a lawyer. 

During 1875, '76, '77 and '78 he was a member of 
the Massachusetts House of Representatives; the last 
three years serving as Speaker of the House. In 1879 



JOHN D. LONG. 149 

he was Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, and in 
1880 was elected Governor of the State. 

In the autumn of 1882 he was elected to the Forty- 
eighth Congress as a Republican. 

The following, from his speech on the silver question, 
gives his views on that subject : 

" Give silver coinage, then, at least a present or pros- 
pective rest. Do not demonetize silver, and do not take 
away its legal-tender function ; but suspend at some time 
its coinage, the unlimited continuance of which is one of 
the very best causes of the appreciation of gold, and 
therefore, as I have said, to some extent, of the present 
disparity between the two metals. In the interest, there- 
fore, of bimetalism, in the interest of silver itself, it is 
time to cast an anchor and take our bearings ; to suspend, 
or at least fix, a time for the suspension of silver coinage, 
whether it be in two or three years ; and then to see — 
for that is, perhaps, all we can do now — if some interna- 
tional arrangement with the other great commercial coun- 
tries can not then be made. 

" The only other point I care to make is as to the re- 
lation of this question to the interests of what are called 
the debtor classes. I agree that it is not the capitalists, 
not the bankers, not the money powers, whose interests 
should be preferred, but those of the body of the people ; 
the men who toil, and whose labor is the most sacred 
trust confided to the care of the Government. Indeed, I 
am inclined to think that nothing has been exaggerated 
more in this whole discussion than the attitude of capital. 
My experience and yours is that it takes care of itself 
under whatever circumstances. Come gold or silver, 



150 OUtl GREAT MEN. 

come high rates or low rates, come boom or panic, come 
inflation or contraction, it eludes danger and improves 
opportunity. It is selfish, Argus-eyed, potential; and, 
from a look over my own section of the country, I am 
persuaded it is already discounting the future, and is un- 
alarmed, if not indiiferent, at any action Congress now 
seems likely to take. 

" I mean, of course, not that capital which is a trust 
for the widow and orphan, but that capital which is so 
especially obnoxious to-day to public sentiment, and which 
is the selfish equipment of the plutocracy. In homely 
phrase, that form of capital can stand the agony of a de- 
based coinage if the other great interests of the people 
can do so ; nay, would probably profit by the convulsions 
of which it would take advantage. I have no sympathy 
with it except as it serves its use and its employment to 
keep the blood flowing in our channels of industry. My 
sympathies, like those claimed by my friends on the other 
side, are with those who have not this plutocratic reli- 
ance, and whose labor, whose earnings, whose credit, 
whose homes, depend upon the financial standard and 
regulation which our legislation shall give to currency 
and the monetary system. 

" On that premise, what, then, is the best policy as 
between silver and gold, in their present disparity of 
value, as to the matter of a National standard? I can 
only gather my illustrations from homely life. I have 
been taught, and I know it is true, and no honest laboring 
man in my district would instruct me otherwise, that, if 
a w^orkman dependent on his hands for his living desires 
success, reputation, property, credit, he will obtain them 



JOHN D. LONG. 151 

by turning out the best work, and not by turning out, in 
bare compliance with the letter of his contract, second- 
rate work. The latter would give him, perhaps, an im- 
mediate gain in a single transaction or in fulfilling an ex- 
isting obligation, but it would forever ruin him in all 

future negotiations, and stamp him as second-rate. 

"Just as true is this principle in our national as in 

our individual relations. Admit, if you please, that the 
Government is at liberty to pay silver or in gold. Admit 
that the silver dollar is not a dishonest dollar, and that 
it is hardly worth while, even in the eagerness of debate, 
to term it repudiatory. But, on the other hand, you must 
admit that it has fallen off in relative value, and that, as 
compared with gold, it is like the artisan's second-rate 
work as compared with his best. To pay our National 
debt in silver, the cheaper coin, and thereby driving gold 
out of the country to scale all private indebtedness, might 
be a gain in that single transaction, but it would be an 
indefinite injury to public and to private credit, and there- 
fore a source of burden and disaster and hard times, not 
to the Nation merely, which can stand almost anything, 
but to that very body of the laboring and debtor people 
who can stand very little, and for whom you are pretend- 
ing to legislate, and whose interest you claim to have at 
heart. 

" It is said. Why pay the bondholder in gold and every- 
body else in silver? A false impression is produced by 
these constant references to the bondholder, as well as 
by the whole foolishness of calling names and invoking 
rhetorical bugbears. 

"Whether it be silver-kings on the one side or gold- 



152 OUR GREAT MEX. 

bugs on the other, we may be pretty sure that one is just 
as selfish as, and not a bit more interested in the ' dear 
people ' than the other. The bondholder is no worse and 
no better than anybody else. Taking into account the 
high premium cost of his United States bonds and the 
small rate of interest they pay, there is no other equally 
secured investor who gets so small a return for his money. 
Remember, too, that he by no means stands for the plu- 
tocracy, but represents many a poor widow and orphan, 
many a hard-working laborer, many a dependent salary 
clerk — all whose savings are invested in the securities of 
the United States, either directly or through the savings- 
bank or some other financial institution. There is, of 
course, no reason why the bondholder should be paid in 
any better coin than any other creditor of the Govern- 
ment. But the advantage of paying our National debt and 
interest in gold, or by the gold standard, is not because it 
is held by the bondholder class as such, but because the 
coin in which, or standard by which, we pay the National 
debt and interest is the one test that determines the credit 
of our Government throughout the world, and thereby 
establishes the standard and test also of jDublic and pri- 
vate credit, and, most important of all, the worth of the 
people's money. Like any other humble laborer working 
for the Government for my daily wages, I might ask why 
I should be paid in silver while the bondholder is paid in 
gold. But a moment's reflection shows me that it makes 
no difference to me so long as my silver, by virtue of the 
Government's resolute and honest policy, is just as good 
as the bondholder's gold. But, on the other hand, if the 
Government, by paying the bondholder in silver, thereby 



JOHN D. LONG. 153 

impairs and discredits all its currency and its credit, and 
drives gold to a premium, and so out of circulation, then 
it does make a diiference to me, and a very damaging 
difference, for then the silver in which I am paid becomes 
of a less purchasing power ; I have killed the goose that 
laid the golden egg ; I am become the dog in the manger ; 
in my endeavor to bite off the bondholder's golden nose, I 
have bitten off my own silver one, which till then was 
just as good as his, and, had it been a rose, would have 
been just as sweet, called by whatever metallic name. 

" The laboring man is not a fool or a weakling. He 
knows perfectly well on which side his bread is buttered, 
is a good deal brighter than a silver dollar, and has 
organized for his interest and for that share in the ben- 
efits of the wealth he creates to which he is so justly 
entitled. You can not in the long run cheat him with 
sophistries. He is the one constant creditor. His pecu- 
niary interest is represented by his wages and his savings. 
These, to him, are sacred; and anything that impairs 
them is his enemy and ruin. He rarely owes anything, 
except for his daily supplies, which are less than his daily 
wages. On the contrary, generally thrifty, he has his 
balance in savings laid up for a wet day. In Massachu- 
setts there are in its savings-banks $274,000,000, almost 
equal to one-quarter of our National debt. It is an 
increase of twelve millions in the last year, and repre- 
sents in round numbers 850,000 open accounts, a number 
equal to forty per cent, of all the inhabitants of that State, 
and more than one hundred per cent, of all the families, 
with an average sum to each depositor of over three hun- 
dred dollars. It is the adventurous capitalist, the blood- 

10 



154 OUR GREAT MEN. 

sucking speculator, the gambler in property, the borrower 
on risks and chances, the would-be monopolist, the wrecker 
in mining ventures and land schemes and paper-and- 
water railroads, in other words it is the very vultures 
against whom to-day organized labor is most protesting, 
that constitute to a large extent that part of the debtor 
class for whom and in aid of whose reckless ventures you 
are really dei:)reciating the currency. Suj)pose we invoke 
just here some of the epithets of our friends on the other 
side. Suppose we throw back a little mud — in a purely 
Pickwickian sense, of course — at these silver cormorants 
who conspire in the interest of these outrageous schemes ; 
these bloated fatteners who feed on the rotting carcass 
of a debased currency; these vampires who eat out the 
hearts of women and orphans and the poor, and rob 
them of the security of their little savings, wrung out of 
the toil and sweat of days' works and worn muscles. 
The ghosts of Nero and Tamerlane and Philip II have 
been invoked ; but what are they, or what is the oblitera- 
tion of Poland or the oppression and robbing of Ireland, 
compared with this crime of clij^ping the coin and reducing 
the value of the wages of fifty millions of people, and then 
coupling with the crime the unutterable meanness of pre- 
tending to do it under the guise of protecting them ? So 
the wolf covers and devours the lamb. For heaven's 
sake, let us get out of this sickening air of bathotic and 
vaporous hypcr-rhetoric and unjust charges against par- 
ties who are just as honest and just as selfish on one 
side as on the other. The people only laugh at this 
bandying of epithets. They know that the various mate- 
rial interests of the country will naturally seek their own 



JOHN D. LONG. 155 

promotion; that the owners of silver investments very 
naturally pull one way to secure sale and profit of their 
product, and the security holders, who are the wage- 
earners and wage-savers, pull the other to prevent the 
depreciation of their property. But there is no need 
to call names or throw mud. The simple question is 
whether on the whole and for the general welfare, as dis- 
tinguished from any private or local interest, it is better 
to maintain the standard of the people's money or to 
debase it. Certainly the laboring man wants no depre- 
ciation in the j)urchasing power of the wages he earns, or 
in the security of the savings he has laid by out of them. 
Yet to pay him in a baser coin is to diminish the pur- 
chasing power of every dollar for which he sweats and 
toils, and for which he gives his blood and bone. You 
can not in the long run deceive him by bellowing that you 
have clipped the bondholder's coin, if, at the same time, 
he sees that you in the same ratio have reduced his own 
coin and impaired his ability to buy flour and meat and 
lay up savings. He cares not whether you pay the bond- 
holders by the standard of gold or diamonds so long as 
you j)ay him in an equivalent thereto. Beware how you 
trifle with his dollar; for, let it be gold or silver, or 
paper, the moment it is worth to him less than a hun- 
dred cents, and will purchase for him less than a hun- 
dred cents' worth of bread and meat, he will justly turn 
and rend you. He owes no debts, and is under no temp- 
tation to scale them. It is capital, enterprise, employ- 
ment, which owe debts, and which owe him, and not he 
them ; and when they pay him he wants the best money, 
and if you give him anything less he will justly charge 



156 OUR GREAT MEN. 

that he asks for bread and you give him a stone, for fish 
and you give him a serpent. I envy not the estimate in 
which he will hold the legislator, or body of legislators, 
who shall set in motion the avalanche of a depreciation 
of the currency of the laboring masses, clipping their 
wages, undermining the foundation of their profits, credit 
and accumulation, and reducing the purchasing power of 
their dollars. What is its purchasing power under the 
present gold standard as compared with its purchasing 
power when we had an inflated and depreciated currency? 
It will be the part of prudence to look at the statistics on 
this point, for they show that when in the inflated period, 
during and after the closing years of the war, wages were 
more in the number of dollars paid than they are now 
under a gold standard, yet their purchasing power, their 
equivalent in the necessary supplies of life, was less." 









JDMM J« IMS^^aLaLI 



Hon. JOHN J. INGALLS, 

OF KANSAS. 




^OHN J. INGALLS, of Atchison, one of the 
most active members of the United States 
Senate, was born in Middleton, Essex 
County, Massachusetts, December 29th, 
1833. He is an alumnus of Williams College, Williams- 
town, Massachusetts, having graduated there in 1855. 
In 1857 he was admitted to the Bar, and one year later, 
anticipating Horace Greeley's advice to young men, he 
left his New England home for the then far West. He 
settled in Atchison, Kansas, and soon became popular 
both as a professional man and as a citizen. 

In 1859 he was elected a member of the Wyandotte 
Constitutional Convention, and in 1860 Secretary of the 
Territorial Council. On the organization of the first 
State Senate he was elected Clerk, and in 1862 was elected 
a member of the State Senate of Kansas from Atchison 
County. He was Major, Lieutenant-Colonel and Judge- 
Advocate of the Kansas Volunteers, 1863-65. 

In 1872 he was elected to the United States Senate as 
the Republican successor of Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, and has 
repeatedly shown how well he merited the election. 

In 1884 his Alma Mater gave him the degree of LL.D. 

(159) 



160 OUR GUIEAT MEN. 

Mr. Ingalls is one of the brightest, sharpest and keen- 
est debaters on the floor of the Senate. 

The following is a summary of his speech on "Rela- 
tions Between the Senate and Executive Departments:" 

"Contemporaneous construction of the Constitution, 
fortified by long usage and acquiescence, undisturbed for 
more than seventy-five years, has, to my mind, incontesta- 
bly and impregnably established two fundamental prop- 
ositions : First, that under the Constitution of the United 
States the power to appoint includes the power to remove, 
and that both these powers are vested in the President 
of the United States, subject only to the power of the 
Senate to negative in cases of appointment ; and, second, 
that where the tenure of an office is not fixed by the Con- 
stitution, it is held at the pleasure of the Executive. 

" I therefore take up this argument where the ojDpo- 
sition leave it; I begin where they close. I concede all 
that they demand as to the constitutional power of the 
Executive upon the subject of appointments to office. If 
it shall appear that the report of the Committee on the 
Judiciary is inconsistent with these declarations, that the 
report and the resolutions to which we are now asked to 
give our assent in any manner impair or infringe upon, 
or are in derogation of those admitted high executive 
prerogatives, then I shall submit to condemnation, for 
my signature is appended to that report. 

"The allegation has been made that while this contro- 
versy has proceeded the Senate has been inactive, inter- 
posing partisan objections to the transaction of executive 
business, to prevent the execution of his high trusts by 
the President of the United States. I yesterday had 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 161 

compiled from the records of the executive office, for the 
purpose of showing what has been done in this particular, 
a statement, public under our rules, which shows that 
from the 25th of January, 1886, to the date of the last 
executive session, there had been confirmed by the Senate 
four hundred and ninety-three nominations of officers sent 
down by the President. Never in any single instance 
where there has been a vacancy, occurring by resignation, 
expiration of term, or proper removal, upon which we could 
properly act, has there been an instant of delay. The 
Senate has not inquired whether the nominee was a Dem- 
ocrat or a Republican, but has proceeded vigorously, in- 
dustriously and steadily in the performance of its consti- 
tutional duties ; and if there has been inaction or non- 
action upon nominations, I shall show before I conclude 
my remarks that it has been invited by the Administra- 
tion. 

"Again, it has been alleged that the action of the 
majority of the Senate is instigated by the purpose of 
keeping Republicans in office ; that we are moved by 
partisan considerations to thwart, by all means in our 
power, the efforts of the Executive to transfer the official 
patronage of the Government to the party that was placed 
in power by the votes of a majority of the people. I am 
not authorized to speak for others, but for myself, and for 
those who have accredited me here, I can not submit 
with patience to such an intolerable accusation. 

"Mr. President, the Republicans of Kansas are Re- 
publicans. They are neither afraid to be so classified nor 
ashamed to be thus described. They do not covet any 
qualifying or palliative epithets. Their attitude is neither 



162 OUR GREAT MEN. 

apologetic nor defensive. They have an unconquerable 
pride in their political achievements, in the history they 
have made, in the triumphs they have won. For twenty- 
five years they have stood upon the skirmish line, neither 
asking nor giving quarter. They are Republicans not by 
inheritance, not by tradition, not by accident, but from 
conviction ; and they are as steadfast in defeat as in vic- 
tory. They are partisans, intrepid, undaunted, uncom- 
promising, and they can give good reasons for the faith 
that is in them. 

" They believe, and I believe, that for the past quarter 
of a century, upon every vital issue before the American 
people, secession, slavery, coercion, the public credit, 
honest elections, universal freedom, and the protection 
of American labor, they have always been right, and 
that their opponents have always been wrong ; and, while 
they concede unreservedly patriotism and sincerity to 
their adversaries, temporary impulse has not convinced 
them that they were in error. There is neither defection 
nor dismay in their columns, They are ready, they are 
impatient to renew the battle. Animated by such im- 
pulse it is not singular that they should feel that no 
Republican can hold an appointive office under a Demo- 
cratic administration without either sacrificing his con- 
victions or forfeiting his self-respect. 

"According, sir, when a little more than a year ago 
a Democratic administration was inaugurated, those who 
were in public station began with one consent to make 
excuse to retire to private life. They did not stand upon 
the order of their going ; they trampled upon each other 
in a tumultuous and somewhat indecent haste to get out 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 163 

of office. There was no craven cry for mercy ; no mer- 
cenary camp-follower fled for shelter to the bomb-proofs 
of the tenure-of-office act ; no sutler crawled behind the 
fragile breastworks of civil-service reform for protection. 
They lost their baggage, but they retained their colors, 
their arms, their ammunition and their camp equipage, 
and marched off the field with the honors of war. If at 
the expiration of one year a few yet remain in office, 
rari nantes in gurgite vasto, it is because the victors have 
been unable to agree among themselves or been unable to 
discover among their own numbers competent and qual- 
ified successors. 

" Mr. President, candor compels me to say that the 
Democracy of that State share the same temper and 
spirit. From 1854, when the Territory was organized, 
down to the 29th of January, 1861, when the State was 
admitted, if there was a Republican holding any appoint- 
ive office, it was an inadvertence ; and if, from 1861 down 
to 1885, there was a Democrat holding an official position 
requiring confirmation by the Senate, it was an oversight-, 
it escaped the somewhat vigilant scrutiny of my col- 
league and myself and those who have preceded us here. 

"Therefore, Mr. President, I am not of those who 
believe in non-partisanship in politics, and I should be 
recreant to the high trust confided in me were I to 
refrain from declaring my conviction that political par- 
ties, energetic, vigorous and well-defined, are indispensa- 
ble to the success of free popular governments. Wherever 
the life of States is freest and most irrepressible, there 
party spirit is most active and aggressive. It is by the 
conflict and collision of political parties that the latent 



164 OUR GREAT MEN. 

and richest powers of the State are made manifest; and 
those whom I represent have no sympathy with the 
dogma that it reflects glory iij)on a statesman to affect 
independence of his party, or that it is an indication of 
virtue in a citizen to belong to no political organization. 

"Political parties are social groups in the nation, 
allied by common purposes and kindred aspirations for 
the accomplishment of beneficial results. When parties 
perish this Government will expire, for we all understand 
that in this country the only government is the party in 
powder. Here is no dynasty, no ruling family, nothing 
corresponding to the functions of government under 
other systems except the party that is for the time 
being intrusted by the votes of a majority of the people 
with the execution of their will. And, sir, when a major- 
ity of the people declare that there shall be a change 
of administration, it is necessarily implied that there 
shall be a change of those agencies through which alone 
political administration can be made effectual. It is use- 
less to juggle and palter about this matter. A change 
of administration is a change of policies and methods, 
and the Chief Magistrate is entitled to the co-operation 
of agents and ministers who are in sympathy with his 
opinions and the doctrines which he is chosen to enforce 
and maintain. 

"Sir, unless the President of the United States is to 
be a mummy, swathed in the cerements of the grave, he 
must have powers commensurate with his duties. He is 
charged to Hake care that the laws be faithfully executed,' 
and unless he has the power to select the agencies 
through which the laws are administered ; through which 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 165 

the revenues are collected and disbursed, the post-offices 
conducted, the Indians supported and controlled, the 
glory and honor of the nation maintained, that duty 
imposed upon him by the Constitution is an idle phrase ; 
it means nothing; it is an empty formula. Charged with 
these great duties, liable to impeachment if they are not 
properly performed, how can it be claimed with justice 
that there shall be an interpolation of novel doctrines of 
reform, under which, while the chief is still to be held 
responsible, he shall be deprived of all the agencies and 
ministrations under the Constitution by which they can 
alone be so administered in sympathy with him and the 
policy he represents ? 

" Therefore, sir, I am confident that, when it was 
ascertained in November, 1884, that a change of the 
political majority in this country had been registered, 
there was a general faith and conviction that a change of 
official holdings would follow. The Democratic party 
desired it; the Republican ]3arty expected it, and would 
have been content, and had it been done the people at 
large would have said, with one accord, amen. But this 
generation has witnessed the genesis of a new political 
gospel ; a novel organization has appeared upon the 
earth, a new school of political philosophers, who an- 
nounce that non-partisanship is the panacea for all the 
evils that afflict the Republic. Having no avowed opin- 
ions upon the great topics of the hour, they feebly decry 
the corruptions of the American system, and peevishly 
and irritably declare that the Government is degenerate 
and degraded, and that the true prescription to elevate, 
reform and purify the public service is to prevent the 



166 OUR GREAT MEN. 

clerks from being removed out of their places in the De- 
partments. This brotherhood has not been hitherto very 
largely re-enforced from the Democracy. If there has 
been an original civil- service reformer who has deserted 
from the ranks of the Democracy history does not record 
his name. It has been left to the party to which I belong 
to afford conspicuous and shining illustrations of that 
class of political thinkers who are never quite sure that 
they are supporting a party unless they are reviling its 
candidates and denouncing its platform ; who are not pos- 
itive that they are standing erect unless they are leaning 
over backward, and whose idea of reforming the organiza- 
tion in which they profess to be classified is to combine 
with its adversaries and vote for candidates who openly 
spurn their ^professions and depreciate the stock in trade 
which they denominate their principles. Standing on the 
corners of the streets, enlarging the borders of their phy- 
lacteries, they loudly advertise their perfections, thank- 
ing God that they are not as other men, even these Re- 
publicans and Democrats ; they traffic with both to ascer- 
tain which they can most profitably betray. 

"Mr. President, the neuter gender is not popular 
either in nature or society. ' Male and female created He 
them.' But there is a third sex, if that sex can be called 
sex which has none, resulting sometimes from a cruel 
caprice of nature ; at others from accident or malevolent 
design, possessing the vices of both and the virtues of 
neither; effeminate, without being masculine or feminine; 
unable either to beget or to bear; possessing neither 
fecundity nor virility; endowed with the contempt of 
men and the derision of women, and doomed to sterility. 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 167 

isolation and extinction. But they have two recognized 
functions : They sing falsetto, and they are usually se- 
lected as the guardians of the seraglios of Oriental 
despots. 

"And thus, to pass from the illustration to the fact, 
these political epicenes, without pride of ancestry or hope 
of posterity, chant in shrill falsetto their songs of praise 
of non-partisanship and civil-service reform, and ap- 
parently have been selected as the harmless custodians 
of the conscience of the National Executive. 

" Sir, I am not disposed to impugn the good faith, the 
patriotism, the sincerity, the many unusual traits and fac- 
ulties of the President of the United States. He is the 
sphinx of American politics. It is said that he is a fatal- 
ist ; that he regards himself as the child of fate — the man 
of destiny ; and that he places devout and implicit reliance 
upon the guiding influence of his star. Certainly, whether 
he be a very great man or a very small man, he is a very 
extraordinary man. His career forbids any other con- 
clusion. 

"The Democratic party was not wanting, when its 
convention assembled at Chicago, in many renowned and 
illustrious characters ; men who had led the forlorn hope 
in its darkest and most desperate days; men for whose 
character and achievements, for whose fame and history 
not only that organization, but the country, had the pro- 
foundest admiration and respect. There was Thurman, 
and Bayard, and Hendricks, and Tilden, and McDonald, 
and others, perhaps, not less worthy and hardly less illus- 
trious, upon whom the mantle of that great distinction 
might have fallen ; but the man who, at the mature age 



168 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of thirty-five, abandoned a liberal and honored profession 
to become the Sheriff of Erie, without known opinions 
and destitute of experience or training in public affairs, 
outstripped them all in the race of ambition ; and when, 
but little more than a year ago, he entered this Chamber 
as the President-elect of the United States, he encountered 
the curious scrutiny of an audience to whom he was a 
stranger in feature as in fame; a stranger to the leaders 
of his own party as well as to the representatives of all 
the nations of the earth who had assembled to witness 
the gorgeous pageant of his inauguration. 

"Sir, the career of Napoleon was sudden, startling 
and dramatic. There have been many soldiers of fortune 
who have sprung at one bound from obscurity to fame, 
but no illustration of the caprices of destiny so brilliant 
and bewildering is recorded in history as the elevation 
of Grover Cleveland to the Chief Magistracy of sixty 
millions of people. 

"If, when he was inaugurated, he had determined 
that the functions of Government should be exercised by 
officers selected from his .own party, the Nation would 
have been content; but he did not so determine, and 
herein and hereon is founded the justification that the 
majority of the Senate can satisfactorily use and employ 
in demanding that no action shall be had in connection 
with these suspensions from office until there has been 
satisfactory assurance that injustice has not been done. 
If it were understood that these suspensions and removals 
were made for political reasons, the country would be 
content — the Republican majority in the Senate would be 
content. But what is the attitude ? Ever since his in- 



M 



JOHX J. INGALLS. 169 

augiiration, and for many months before, by many utter- 
ances, official and private, in repeated declarations never 
challenged, Mr. Cleveland announced that he would not 
so administer this Grovernment. At the very outset, in 
his letter of acceptance, he denounced the doctrine of par- 
tisan changes in the patronage, and through all of his 
political manifestoes down to the present time he has re- 
peated these assurances with emphatic and unchanging 
monotony. 

"He has declared that there should be no changes in 
office where the incumbents were competent and qualified 
for political reasons, but that they should be permitted to 
serve their terms. Like those who were grinding at the 
mill, one has been taken and another has been left. Some 
Republicans have been suspended, and others have been 
retained. What is the irresistible inference ? What is 
the logic of the events except that, in view of what the 
President has declared, every man who is suspended is 
suspended for cause, and not for political reasons ? It is 
not possible to suspect the President of duplicity and 
treacherous deception. 

"For the purpose of illustration, let me call the atten- i 
tion of the Senate, and through the Senate the attention ^ 
of the country, which is to judge of this matter, to the .*) 
basis on which this inquiry proceeds. I read from th^,; 
letter of Grover Cleveland, dated Albany, August 19th, 
1884, accepting the nomination for the Presidency of the 
United States. He says : ^-J 

'"The people pay the wages of the public eniployes, 
and they are entitled to the fair and honest work^ which 
the money thus paid should command. It is Jihe duty of 



^i.. 



170 OUK GKEAT MEN. 

those intrusted with the management of their aifairs to 
see that such public service is forthcoming. The selec- 
tion and retention of subordinates in Government em- 
ployment should depend upon the ascertained fitness and 
the value of their work, and they should be neither ex- 
pected nor allowed to do questionable party service.' 

"There is another utterance in this document to 
which I might properly allude further on, but which ap- 
pears to me to be so significant that I will read it now. 
It has a singular fitness in connection with this subject 
that we have been discussing. Speaking of honest ad- 
ministration, he says: 

"'I believe that the j)ublic temjier is such that the 
voters of the land are prepared to support the party 
which gives the best promise of administering the Grov- 
ernment in the honest, simple and plain manner which is 
consistent with its character and purposes.' 

" And now: 

"'They have learned that mystery and concealment 
in the management of their affairs cover tricks and 
betrayal.' 

" Yes, they have learned that mystery in the admin- 
istration of the patronage of the Grovernment, by the 
concealment from the people of the documents and papers 
that bear upon the character and conduct of officials sus- 
pended and those that are appointed, covers tricks and 
betrayal. 'I thank thee for that word.' A 'Daniel' has 
* come to judgment.' No more pertinent and j^ungent com- 
mentary upon the facts of the present situation could be 
formulated than that which Grover Cleveland uttered 
before his foot was upon the threshold, that mystery 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 171 

and concealment in the management of the affairs of the 
peojDle covered tricks and betrayal. There are tricks, 
and somebody has been betrayed. 

"Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the 
election, some of the contingent of Republican deserters 
who elected Mr. Cleveland to the Presidency, becoming 
apprehensive that there might be trouble about their 
thirty pieces of silver, formulated their uneasiness in 
words, and addressed him a letter calling his attention 
to the professions upon which he had been elected and 
demanding a guarantee. To that letter, on the 25th day 
of December, 1884, Mr. Cleveland replied, and from that 
reply I select certain paragraphs, not being willing to 
tax the patience of the Senate or waste my own strength 
in reading what is not strictly material. 

"'I regard myself pledged to this' — that is, to 
this practical reform in the civil service, this refusal to 
turn out competent and qualified officials and put in 
Democrats — 'because my conception of true Democratic 
faith and public duty requires that this and all other 
statutes should be in good faith and without evasion 
enforced, and because, in many utterances made prior to 
my election as President, approved by the party to which 
I belong and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I 
have in effect promised the people that this should be 
done.' Not his party, but the people — Republicans as 
well as Democrats. 

"Then he proceeds to castigate the Democratic party: 

" ' I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer 

that many of our citizens fear that the recent party 

change in the National Executive may demonstrate that 
- 11 



172 OUR GEEAT MEN. 

the abuses which have grown up in the civil service are 
ineradicable. I know that they are deeply rooted, and 
that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately 
related to success in the maintenance of i^arty organiza- 
tion, and I am not sure that all those who profess to be 
the friends of this reform will stand firmly among its 
advocates when they find it obstructing their way to 
patronage and place.' 

"'He goes on thus; and this is a most significant 
promise and pledge : 

"'There is a class of Government positions which are 
not within the letter of the civil service statute, but 
which are so disconnected with the policy of an adminis- 
tration that the removal therefrom of present incum- 
bents, in my opinion, should not be made during the 
terms for which they were appointed solely on partisan 
grounds, and for the purpose of putting in their places 
those who are in political accord with the appointing 
power ' — and then follows that celebrated definition which 
lifted the lid from the box of Pandora — ' but many men 
holding such positions have forfeited all just claim to 
retention because they have used their places for party 
purposes in disregard of their duty to the people, and 
because, instead of being decent public servants, they 
have proved themselves ofl*ensive partisans and unscru- 
pulous manipulators of local party management.' 

" Here endeth the first lesson ! ' This was in the 
year 1884. 

"The first official utterance of President Cleveland 
upon the 4th of March, 1885, renewed the assurance that 
had been given. He declared: 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 173 

" * The people demand reform in the administration 
of the Grovernment, and the application of business prin- 
ciples to business aifairs. As a means to this end civil- 
service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our 
citizens have the right to protection from incompetency 
of public employes who hold their places solely as the 
reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influ- 
ences of those Avho promise and the vicious who expect 
such rewards. And those who worthily seek public em- 
ployment have the right to insist that merit and compe- 
tency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency 
or the surrender of honest political belief.' 

" How this system, thus inaugurated, this amphibious 
plan of distributing the patronage of the country among 
his own partisans, and at the same time insisting upon 
the enforcement of civil-service reform doctrines, practi- 
cally resulted, finds its first illustration in the celebrated 
circular of the Postmaster-General, that was issued on 
the 29th of April, 1885. I do not propose to defile my 
observations by reading that document. I allude to it 
for the purpose of saying that a more thoroughly de- 
graded, loathsome, execrable and detestable utterance 
never was made by any public official of any political 
persuasion in any country or in any age. It was an in- 
vitation to every libeller, every anonymous slanderer, 
every scurrilous defamer, to sluice the feculent sewage of 
communities through the Post-office Department, with 
the assurance that, without any intimation or information 
to the person aspersed, incumbents should be removed 
and Democratic partisans appointed. I offered a resolu- 
tion on the 4th of this month calling on the Postmaster- 



174 OUR GREAT MEN. 

General for information as to the number of removals of 
fourth-class postmasters, not requiring confirmation by 
the Senate, between the 4th day of March, 1885, and that 
date. It was a simple proposition. It required nothing 
but an insi^ection of the official register and a computation 
of numbers. No names were required and no dates. 
There was a simple question of arithmetic to ascertain 
the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters not 
included in the list sent to- the Senate by the President, 
the salary being less than $1,000. Eighteen days 
elapsed. There seemed to be some reluctance on the 
part of the Department to comply with that request, and 
I thereupon oifered a su2:>plemental resolution, which was 
adopted by the Senate, asking the Postmaster-General to 
advise us whether that first resolution had been received, 
and, if so, why it was not answered, and when a reply 
might be expected. 

" On the second day following an answer came down. 
It does not include the number of places that were filled 
where had been resignations. It does not include the list 
of those appointed where there had been vacancies from 
death or any other cause; but simjDly those who had 
been removed without cause and without hearing in the 
space of the first twelve months of this Administration 
pledged to non-partisanship and civil-service reform. 
The number foots up 8,635. Eighty-six hundred and 
thirty-five removals of fourth-class postmasters under an 
Administration pledged by repeated utterances not to 
remove except for cause, making an average, counting 
three hundred and thirteen working days in that year, of 
twenty-eight every day; and, counting seven hours as a 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 175 

day's work, four removals every hour, or at the rate of 
one for every fifteen minutes of time from the 4th day of 
March, 1885, until the 4th day of March, 1886. And 
that is civil-service reform! That is non-partisanship in 
the administration of this Government! That is exercis- 
ing public office as a public trust! 

"The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] yesterday 
took occasion to advert with somewhat of animated hilar- 
ity to the suggestion of the Senator from Iowa about the 
evolutionary condition of the Democratic party, and 
dwelt with considerable unction upon a term that the 
Senator from Iowa had applied to the Democracy in his 
very able and interesting speech — a 'protoplasmic ' cell — 
and the Senator then proceeded to give us the definition 
of the term as it appears in the dictionaries, and sug- 
gested that, if those facts had been known at the time 
when the canvass was pending, Mr. Cleveland woiild un- 
doubtedly have been counted out in Kew York. 

"The Senator from Iowa might have gone further in 
his application of the doctrine of evolution with much 
propriety. Greology teaches us that, in the process of 
being, upward from the protoplasmic cell, through one 
form of existence to another, there are intermediary and 
connecting stages, in which the creature bears some re- 
semblance to the state from which it has emerged, and 
some to the state to which he is proceeding. History is 
stratified politics; every stratum is fossiliferous ; and I 
am inclined to think that the political geologist of the 
future, in his antiquarian researches between the triassic 
series of 1880 and the cretaceous series of 1888, as he in- 
spects the Jurassic Democratic strata of 1884, will find 



176 OUR GREAT MEN. 

some curious illustrations of the doctrine of political 
evolution. 

"In the transition from the fish to the bird there is 
an anomalous animal, long since extinct, named by the 
geologists the pterodactyl, or the winged reptile, lizard 
with feathers upon its paws and plumes upon its tail. A 
political system which illustrates in its practical opera- 
tions the appointment by the same Administration of 
Eugene Higgins and Dorman B. Eaton can properly be 
regarded as in the transition epoch, and characterized as 
the j^terodactyl of j^olitics. It is like that animal, equally 
adapted to waddling and dabbling in the slime and mud 
of partisan politics, and soaring aloft with discordant 
cries into the glittering and opalescent empyean of civil- 
service reform. 

"The President is not responsible to the Senate, nor 
is the Senate responsible to him; both are alike resj^onsi- 
ble to the people. But in the cases at bar we are com- 
pelled to inquire, in justice to the people, whether those 
pledges have been redeemed, or whether they have been 
broken, violated and disregarded. Had the patronage 
of the Government, within proper limits, been turned 
over for its exercise to the party intrusted with j^ower 
by a majority of the people, there could have been no 
complaint; but upon the assurance that I have read, the 
declaration was made that in every case where an incum- 
bent was competent and qualified he should remain in 
office till the expiration of his term. 

"When, therefore, some were suspended and others 
were left, what is the irresistible inference, after the 
dc^clarations of the President, except that these persons 



JOHN J. INGALLS. 177 

were suspended for cause, either affecting their personal 
integrity or their official administration? Upon the 
ground, then, of personal justice, if no other, we are en- 
titled to know whether wrong has been done by the accu- 
sations that have been filed in the Departments, so that 
we may protect those who are unable to defend them- 
selves from injustice and defamation. Since this debate 
began there are indications that the President has be- 
come convinced that his position is untenable, and that 
he has concluded to yield to the reasonable requests of 
the Senate and relieve suspended officials from the other- 
wise inevitable imputations upon their conduct and char- 
acter. 

"The Executive is not on trial before the Senate; 
the Senate is not on trial before the Executive; but 
both, as to the sincerity of their professions and the con- 
sistency of their actions, are on trial before that greater, 
wiser and more j)owerful tribunal — the enlightened con- 
science of the people, from whose verdict there is neither 
exculpation nor appeal." 




Hon. MATTHEW C. BUTLER, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 




ATTHEW C. BUTLER, of Edgefield, is 
a native of Grreenville, South Carolina, 
where he was born March 8th, 1836. He 
received a classical diploma from the Acad- 
emy at Edgefield, and entered the South Carolina Col- 
lege in 1854, but did not wait to graduate before com- 
mencing the study of law. While pursuing his legal 
studies he resided with his uncle, Hon. A. P. Butler, at 
Stonelands, near Edgefield Court House. In December 
of 1857 he was admitted to the Bar. He commenced 
practicing at Edgefield Court House, and in 1860 he was 
elected to the Legislature of South Carolina. 

When the war broke out his heart was with the South- 
ern cause, and he entered the Confederate service as Cap- 
tain of Cavalry in the Hampton Legion early in 1861, and 
by regular promotion Avon the rank of Major-General. 

In 1866 he was again elected to the Legislature of 
South Carolina, and in 1870 was a candidate for Lieuten- 
ant-Governor. In 1870 he received the Democratic vote 
of the State Legislature for United States Senator, receiv- 
ing thirty votes. He was elected to the United States 
Senate, and took his seat the 2d of December, 1877. 

(178) 



MATTHEW C. BUTLER. 179 

Senator Butler is a fine orator, a man of ability, and 
does honor to the State he represents. On the famous 
debate on the admission of Dakota as a State, Mr. 
Butler spoke against the admission. We quote from his 
speech : 

"Mr. President, I concede the right of the people of 
a Territory to apply for adfaission into the Union when 
they have reached that condition which entitles them to 
Statehood. The citation of precedents or authorities is 
not necessary to prove this. It is admitted by all per- 
sons who have given the subject consideration ; but I do 
deny that the inhabitants of a Territory have any in- 
herent or original power in and of themselves to organ- 
ize a State government. They have none of the attri- 
butes of sovereignty while in a Territorial condition 
except of an inchoate character. 

" Congress created the Territorial government of 
Dakota, and exercises as absolute dominion over it as 
the dominion of a State over its counties, and can abolish 
or modify the government at its will. Congress alone 
can authorize the transition from the Territory to a State. 
In Congress the Constitution and laws have lodged this 
power, and the exercise of it anywhere else is a bold, 
naked usurpation, which may lead to a serious conflict of 
authority, to revolution and bloodshed, and ought not to 
be sanctioned or encouraged by any department of the 
government or any law-abiding people. It may be said, 
and truly said, the people of Dakota, by their action, 
have no such purpose or intention ; but I am now talking 
about the tendencies and possible consequences of such 
action. Excited party feeling, under the lead of ambi- 



180 OUR GREAT MEX. 

tious, unwise, indiscreet men, has engulfed more quiet 
communities than Dakota, with all her loyalty and com- 
posure in most perilous and dangerous complications. 

"Mr. President, this matter of making a State is a 
very serious business. A sovereign, inde23endent Com- 
monwealth — sovereign and independent as to the powers 
reserved to it by the Constitiftion — into whose charge the 
life, liberty, j)roperty and happiness of the citizens are 
to be committed. It is not a game of chance between 
political parties, a plaything with which demagogues 
and reckless men may gratify their unsavory ambition, 
or cliques and rings and cabals j)ly their unworthy av©- 
cations. ^ 

"N'o, sir; the interests at stake are too great, and 
our responsibility too grave to permit us to waive it in 
favor of anybody. The architects of our system were 
master workmen in the science of government. They 
erected a structure complete within itself, and yet sus- 
ceptible of almost indefinite expansion. Annex after 
annex has been added, until it has reached a size many 
times greater than the original. By whom were these 
additions authorized to be made by the original founders ? 
By the inhabitants of the Territory out of which the 
addition is to be established — of their own motion and 
volition ? Clearly not. That would be carrying the doc- 
trine of ' squatter sovereignty ' much beyond the point its 
most extreme advocates ever contemplated. 

"By whom, then, I repeat, shall the new State be 
brought into the Union ? I answer, Mr. President, in 
terms never before denied in the history of the country, 
in the territorial expansion going on for a hundred years, 



MATTHEW C. BUTLER. 181 

I answer, by the people of the States, through their 
chosen representatives in the Congress of the United 
States — the sovereign people of the sovereign States, to 
whom belongs the materials out of which the new fabric 
of government is to be built — the people of the States, 
the masters of Congress, the owners of the public domain, 
and the source of all power. Into these hands, and 
nowhere else, the Constitution and laws have committed 
the power. 

"And how is it to be exercised? The process is 
very simple, attended by no complications or political 
legerdemain or mystery. It is by the passage by Con- 
gress of an enabling act empowering the people to erect 
a State within certain prescribed limits of the public 
domain, to be fixed in the act, and conforming to the 
requirements laid down in the Constitution and laws for 
new States, and submitted for final approval by Congress, 
that they shall be republican in form, not repugnant to 
the Constitution, etc. That is all, sir. It is very sim- 
ple — very plain and easily understood. No need to quib- 
ble or gainsay it, for it is the law, and the accuracy and 
correctness of the statement of it can not and will not be 
denied. 

Let us apply this test to the case now before the 
Senate. Have the people of Dakota, now demanding 
admission into the Union, complied with these plain 
requirements of the law? Has Congress passed an 
enabling act, and have they, in pursuance of its terms, 
organized a State government republican in form, and 
presented it for ratification or approval by Congress. If 
they have not, then I submit to the candid judgment of 



182 OUR GREAT MEN. 

every Senator of every and all political parties and opin- 
ions whether they ought not to be required to await this 
indispensable authority before they can become a State ? 
I invite a discussion of the question on a plane higher 
than that of j)arty politics or party advantage, and j^lant 
myself on the invincible stronghold of the law of the 
case, and if I fail to establish the assertion that the 
law is as I present it, I give up the contest and support 
the bill reported by the majority of the Committee on 
Territories. 

"And, sir, with a view of making the issue clear and 
distinct and sharp, I have offered a bill, an enabling act, 
as a substitute for the bill under consideration. I need 
not exj)lain its terms in detail further than to say it is 
substantially the bill passed by the Senate at the last 
session of Congress, and therefore ought to be familiar 
to Senators. The main difference consists in this, that 
my substitute embraces the whole Territory, whereas the 
bill of last session contemplated a division on the forty- 
sixth parallel. I have read with care and interest the 
very able and plausible report of the majority of the 
committee, presented by the Senator from Indiana [Mr. 
Harrison], and the bill which accompanies it, and have 
failed to discover any preliminary authority whatever 
from Congress to organize a State government in 
Dakota. 

"But, say the advocates of this measure, no enabling 
act or other authority from Congress is necessary, and 
certain so-called precedents and compacts and guarantees 
are relied upon in support of this position. Let us ex- 
amine these and see what bearing they have on the case 



MATTHEW C. BUTLER. 183 

made. Before entering upon this inquiry, however, I 
will say, in passing, that I believe Dakota has the essen- 
tial conditions for Statehood, and, further, when she pre- 
sents herself to Congress in an orderly, constitutional 
and legal manner for admission into the Union of States 
on an equal footing with the other States, I will be pre- 
pared to aid and welcome her and her enterprising, in- 
telligent population in rising to the dignity of an inde- 
pendent Commonwealth. But she must come with a 
clean record, expressing the free, untrammeled, uncon- 
trolled wishes of a fair majority of her people. 

******* 

"If we had been as vigilant as our fathers, Dakota's 
petition would have been modified before reference to the 
committee. Like Michigan, she came here as a State, 
having usurped power to become a State, presenting the 
anomaly of two organized governments. State and Terri- 
torial, exercising the functions of governing at the same 
time within the same Territory. Where can a warrant 
for it be found in the Constitution and laws of this coun- 
try? Let us, then, discard this precedent as one unfit to 
be followed. And so with Arkansas — the circumstances 
of her admission are too well known to require extended 
notice. At that time the two political Titans, slavery 
and anti-slavery, were approaching each other on con- 
verging lines — Arkansas represented one and Michigan 
the other — and both Avere taken into the Union in an 
irregular, and, as I insist, unconstitutional manner, as acts 
of propitiation, of compromise, to temporize with the im- 
pending 'irrepressible conflict.' These two giants were 
each struggling for power, and many desperate expedi- 



184 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ents were resorted to for aggrandizement. It would have 
been better for the country, better for j^osterity, if the 
issue had been joined then and settled than to have post- 
jioned it thirty years, when the power aAd capacity of 
the sections to destroy each other had so largely in- 
creased. 

" The same observations apply with equal force to 
Iowa and Florida, but they had enabling acts ; and Mis- 
souri, Wisconsin and ISi^evada, cited in the report, are not 
correctly cited. They had enabling acts, and under them 
organized their State governments. California and Ore- 
gon are also exceptional. The two former were remote, 
outlying Territories, difficult of access to and from the 
seat of Government at Washington, requiring weeks and 
months for communication, now accomplished in hours 
and days. The former, then lately acquired by conquest 
under the dominion of a military authority, a form of 
government repugnant to the American system, Congress 
might have been excused, if not justified, in making an 
exception in her favor under all the circumstances; and 
so of Oregon, and for many of the same reasons. Oregon 
was up to 1846 under the joint occupancy of Great 
Britain and the United States, and, as I have stated, she 
was a remote, outlying Territory. It, therefore, became 
important to the people of that section of country that 
they should have larger 2^owers than they could have 
under the protection of a Territorial government which 
has its existence only by virtue of the power of Congress 
over the Territories. 

"Is there anything in the present condition of our 
affairs to justify this confessedly extraordinary proceed- 



MATTHEW C. BUTLER. 185 

ing on the part of the people of so-called South Dakota 
to set up for themselves a State government wdthout the 
consent of Congress, in defiance of the action of Congress 
on her former application? Slavery is dead, and has 
ceased to be an irritating factor in our politics. The 
' irrepressible conflict ' is ended, and the sections are be- 
coming more and more homogeneous in thought and pur- 
pose. Time is smoothing down the asperities born of 
civil conflict. We are, hai^pily, at peace. The Terri- 
tories are being settled up by an intelligent race of pio- 
neers from all parts of the country, and, in the main, well 
governed. Why, then, depart from the time-honored, 
safe, constitutional rule for their admission into the fam- 
ily of States? I confess, sir, I can not realize the neces- 
sity. Of the twenty-five States admitted into the Union 
but five have come in in this irregular manner — one- 
fifth. 

" Is there a pressing political exigency lurking behind 
this movement which impels it forward with almost un- 
seemly haste and zeal ? Is there a purpose underlying 
the pressure for Statehood to forestall the orderly pro- 
gress of events in Dakota Territory under a new National 
administration, which might change the political com- 
plexion of representatives sent to the JSTational Legisla- 
ture different from those now seeking admission from 
this so-called State ? I can not divest my mind of such a 
suspicion, and that a ' snap ' judgment would be rendered 
if we ratify this effort to make a State." 



Hon. frank l wolford, 

OF KENTUCKY. 




J^^^JRANK L. WOLFORD, of Columbia, who 
represents the Eleventh Congressional Dis- 
trict of Kentucky in the Congress of the 
United States, was born in Adair County, 
of that State, September 2d, 1817. He received a good 
common-school education, and supplemented that with 
the study of law, after due prej^aration of which he was 
admitted to the Bar. 

He was a member of the House of Representatives 
in the G-eneral Assembly of Kentucky in 1847, '48, '65 
and '66. In 1864 and 1868 he was Presidential Elector 
for the State at large. He was Colonel of the First 
Kentucky Cavalry from 1861 to 1864; and Adjutant- 
General of the State of Kentucky in 1867-68. 

He was elected to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth 
Congresses as a Democrat. In his remarks on one of the 
many pension bills brought up before Congress Mr. Wol- 
ford said: 

"Mr. Chairman, I desire to say that in Kentucky, 
Missouri, and several other States of this Union, when 
the great struggle was making for the life of this JS'ation 
all the males who were of age Avent into the army on 

(186) 



FRANK L. WOLFORD. 187 

the one side or the other — those of rich families gener- 
ally going into the Confederate Army, and those who 
were poor into the Union Army. A few boys and old 
men were left at home to take care of the women, to 
plow, to raise corn and keep the women and children 
from starving. When Morgan came to Kentucky, when 
Pegrim came to Kentucky, when Price went to Missouri, 
these boys who had stayed at home came forward in many 
cases to assist in the defense of their State. I remem- 
ber a notable case in the State of Kentucky, when boys 
of sixteen and seventeen years left their plows stand- 
ing in the furrow and joined the militia. In one battle, 
which I remember, with General Pegrim, there were 
under my command two brothers — one of them a member 
of my division, while the other had come from the plow 
that morning to fight for his country. He came at the 
call of the provisional Governor, because the regular 
Governor of the State refused to muster soldiers in. He 
came and put himself in the ranks, and I placed him 
right by the side of his elder brother. I thought it best 
for the militia and the regular trained troops to stand 
together in that fight, for it was a terrible fight. 

"In that battle both these bovs were shot. One had 
his right leg broken, the other had both legs broken. 
The younger boy who had that morning left his plow 
standing in the furrow lay there a cripple ; both legs had 
to be amputated. I sent both home. I thought myself 
justified in doing so, because I had no place to take care 
of them. One of them is drawing a pension. The 
other, because he did not make his application in time 
under the law, which has now expired, has never drawn 

12 



188 OUR GREAT MEN. 

a pension. He is poor; the 'wolf is at the door.' That 
plow stood in the furrow till it rotted, for there was 
nobody else to take it. I think if there ever was a 
righteous measure it is that which proposes to allow pen- 
sions to these militiamen who came from their homes 
and burned with patriotism, all alive to the interests of 
their country, ready to shed their blood and lay down 
their lives for the country they loved." 



-«>J4^>=<-4^-^- 



HON. GEORGE F. HOAR, 

OF MASSACHUSETTS. 




IeORGE F. hoar is a native of the State 
which he so efficiently represents in the 
United States Senate. He was born in 
Concord, Massachusetts, August 29th, 1826. 
When a lad he attended Concord Academy, where he 
prepared for college, and graduated at Harvard College 
in 1846, at the early age of twenty. He then completed 
a course at the Dana Law School, Harvard University. 
Worcester was his chosen home for the future, and there 
he commenced the practice of his profession, soon estab- 
lishing a good practice. 

He was a member of the Massachusetts House of 
Representatives in 1852, and of the Massachusetts Senate 
in 1857. He was elected a Representative to the Forty- 



GEOKGE F. HOAR. 189 

first, Forty-second, Forty-third and Forty-fourth Con- 
gresses, and declined the nomination to the Forty-fifth 
Congress. He was an Overseer of Harvard College from 
1874 to 1880. He was Chairman of the Massachusetts 
State Republican Conventions of 1871, 1877, 1882 and 
1885. 

Mr. Hoar was a delegate to the Republican National 
Conventions of 1876 at Cincinnati, and of 1880 and 1884 
at Chicago, serving as Chairman of the Convention of 
1880, at Chicago. He was appointed one of the man- 
agers on the part of the House of Representatives of the 
Belknap impeachment trial in 1876. He was also a mem- 
ber of the Electoral Commission in 1876. In 1880 he was 
Regent of the Smithsonian Institute. He was formerly 
Vice-President, but is now President, of the American 
Antiquarian Society, and also Trustee of the Peabody 
Museum of Archaeology. 

He has received the degree of Doctor of Laws from 
Amherst, William and Mary and Yale Colleges. 

He was elected to the United States Senate as a Re- 
publican for the term commencing March 4th, 1877. 

In his remarks on the Bankruptcy bill, Mr. Hoar 
said : 

"The desire for a bankruptcy law, the opinion of its 
necessity, is one which is almost a measure of the pro- 
gress of civilization and of business, of wealth and of 
prosperity. Mr. Webster argued with great force that 
the constitutional mandate was intended to be impera- 
tive, peremptory upon Congress, in conferring the power 
to provide for a uniform system of bankruptcy. I do not 
agree with my friend from Kansas, that there is no desire 



190 OUR GREAT MEN. 

for this legislation except from the wealthy merchant and 
creditor classes. There have been since the last bank- 
rupt act Avas repealed more than sixty-one thousand fail- 
ures in the United States reported to Bradstreet, and 
unquestionably, in addition to those, there have been 
enough to make the number in the United States much 
larger, beyond the amount one hundred thousand in all. 
"R-emember the constant increase of the dealing of 
our States with each other, so that the manufacturer in 
Rhode Island has his competitor in Ohio or Michigan, or 
Missouri or Kentucky, and his customer in Mississippi or 
Arkansas or South Carolina. Remember that almost 
every one of our great commercial cities is within an hour 
or two or three of journey to the border of the State 
where it is situated. Take Boston, take Portland, take 
Providence, take Worcester, take Springfield, New York, 
Jersey City, the great manufacturing cities of New Jer- 
sey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, Mil- 
waukee, St. Louis, Atlanta, and a great many others that 
I might name. The men who do business in these cities 
go in and out, day by day, to their daily occupations, 
large numbers of them from residences in adjacent States. 
Under the Constitution of the United States there is not 
one of this vast army of debtors who, if he happened to 
be so unfortunate as to become insolvent, is not, unless 
there be a bankrupt law, put at the mercy of a single 
creditor, and these men must pass through life j^aupers, 
unable to enter uj^on the ordinary business of American 
citizens, dragging ' at each remove a lengthening chain,' 
without right to lay up for their old age, for their wives, 
for their children, for those dependent upon them, what 



JAMES W. THEOCKMOETON. 191 

it is the pride and ambition of every American citizen 
to be able to lay up, a provision after he has gone, unless 
the humane power conferred upon Congress by the Con- 
stitution be exercised ; and it is mainly and chiefly in the 
interest of this class of persons who are driven to the 
alternative of a life of poverty or a life of fraud." 



Hon. JAMES W. THROCKMORTON, 

OF TEXAS. 




IaMES W. THROCKMORTON", of McKin- 

ney, who represents the Fifth Congressional 
District of Texas in the United States Con- 
gress, was born in Sparta, Tennessee, Feb- 
ruary 1st, 1825. At the age of sixteen he emigrated with 
his father to Texas. 

By profession he is a lawyer. 

In 1851 he was elected to the State Legislature of 
Texas, and served as Senator and Representative for ten 
years. In 1861 he was a member of the Secession Con- 
vention of Texas, and was one of the members of that 
Convention who strongly opposed secession ; he, with six 
others, casting his vote against the measure. But, be- 
lieving, as did many of the brave sons of the South, that 
when his State called he must obey, he entered the Con- 
federate service, serving as Captain and Major until the 



192 OUR GREAT MEN. 

autumn of 1863, when he was again returned to the State 
Senate. 

In 1864 the Grovernor of Texas appointed him Briga- 
dier-General of State troops, and commander on the 
north-west border of the State. Under the authority of 
the Confederate States Grovernment, and also the State 
Government of Texas, in May, 1864, he concluded a 
treaty of peace with all the wild tribes of Indians on the 
Texas border, not returning from the discharge of this 
duty till in June after the surrender. 

He was a Delegate to the Constitutional Convention 
of Texas, and was Chairman of the Convention. He was 
elected Governor of Texas for a term of four years, but 
after serving only one year was removed by order of 
General Sheridan, in August of 1867. He was elected a 
Representative to the Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, Forty- 
eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses of the United States 
as a Democrat. 

We give extracts from a speech of Mr. Throckmorton's 
on the Indian Question, which we consider to be one of 
his best: 

"I have said that this appropriation is useless and 
extravagant. I say so because it is money thrown away. 
The utmost we can expect to do in the way of education 
for the Indian is to make the eifort to teach him the ele- 
ments of an ordinary English education. This is pro- 
vided for in the treaties, and should be faithfully carried 
out. You can not make a Christian out of a Jew or a 
Mohammedan, nor can you make a Jew or a Moham- 
medan out of a Christian. Their religious j)rinciples 
have been grounded into them by centuries and ages of 



JAMES W. THROCKMORTON. 193 

teaching, habits, thoughts and associations; no more can 
you change in a day or a generation the teachings, habits, 
thoughts and associations of the untutored savage of the 
mountains and plains. 

^ * 4f Hf ^ ^ 

" I speak especially of the plain and mountain Indians ; 

there is as marked a distinction between those Indians 

and the Indians that formerly inhabited the country 

between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River as 

there is between the ferocious wolves of the j^lains and 

the dogs of our households. The Indians found by our 

ancestors on the shores of New England, along the 

Atlantic and Gulf coast, on the Ohio, the Wabash and 

the Mississippi, on the Tennessee and Cumberland, while 

they lived by the chase and were addicted to war, yet all 

of them, to some extent, cultivated vines and raised corn 

and beans, and tobacco where it would grow. No seed 

was ever planted, no vine was ever cultivated by those to 

whom I refer. 

* * * # « * 

"Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, allow me to present in 
the briefest possible manner my solution of the Indian 
problem. What I would do so far as this bill is con- 
cerned, if the rules permit, would be to insert a provision 
at its close requiring army officers, at the end of this fiscal 
vear, to be detailed and selected from the retired list to 
act as agents, special agents, inspectors, superintendents 
of schools, and as commissioners to assist in the purchase 
of goods and overlooking contracts, and non-commissioned 
officers and privates to act as clerks at the agencies and 
as a police force, and a further provision that the appro- 



194 OUR GREAT MEN. 

l^riatioiis for the industrial schools and other schools at 
Hampton, Carlisle, Genoa, Salem, Lincoln, and all of 
them, should cease with the end of this fiscal year. This 
would give timely notice to all concerned and prepare the 
way for reform and economy. It would be better to j)ass 
a resolution by the House instructing the Committee on 
Indian Affairs to bring in a bill carefully prepared for 
this purpose. 

"The next step to accomplish reform, economy and 
energy in the Indian service would be, with their consent, 
to erect the five civilized nations into a Territory, giving 
them a governor from among their own people, allowing 
them a Territorial Legislature, that is already provided 
for by treaties, giving such Legislature jurisdiction of all 
matters affecting their interests with the General Gov- 
ernment, and regulating intercourse among themselves; 
give them a Delegate on this floor, elected alternately 
fi'om the several nations, to rejoresent their wishes and 
interests, and, as the less civilized tribes of the Territory 
are p)repared for it, admit them into this Territorial gov- 
ernment; leave these civilized nations free to control 
and dispose of their lands according to their own views 
and wishes, as were the people of Kentucky and Texas ; 
allow their national authorities, governors, legislatures 
and courts to administer and execute their own laws, 
protect the rights of their people, and attend to their own 
domestic concerns as freely and fully as they are doing 
to-day ; extend the civil as well as the criminal jurisdic- 
tion of the Federal courts over them in the same man- 
ner as it is extended over the other organized Territories 
of the country; extend to them citizenship and the pro- 



JAMES W. THROCKMORTON. 195 

tection of life, liberty and property as amply as the Con- 
stitution and laws extend it over our own people; abolish 
their agency, and deal with them like you do with other 
free and intelligent people who have churches, and schools, 
and academies scattered everywhere among them. Do 
these things, and it will be but a few years until you w411 
have another Territory knocking at your doors for admit- 
tance into the sisterhood of States that will be as fair and 
peerless, in all that constitutes a grand and noble State, 
as any now in this great galaxy of States. 

"In respect to other tribes, comply in the most liberal 
manner with all treaty obligations, and with the weak 
and needy go beyond this ; curtail their reservations, 
with their consent, by giving an equivalent, but do not 
crowd them on the same area of land upon which white 
men would make a comfortable support; enact laws 
authorizing and requiring the Department to lease por- 
tions of their reservations for grazing purposes, utilizing 
the rich grasses that should not be allowed to go to 
waste and decay, and by such means affording employ- 
ment to the Indians as herders, and learning them the 
value of cattle, at the same time making profitable these 
large tracts of country by producing cheap beef for the 
millions of toilers of the country, and thus creating a 
revenue that will largely contribute to the support of the 
Indians ; discontinue the vast sums you have been appro- 
priating for industrial and boarding schools, and for the 
support of sinecures in office, and cut off the large sums 
for transportation. Let them attend to their own home 
schools and schools of religious denominations among 
them, and when there is found now and then a bright 



196 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



pupil who would appreciate better advantages send him 
to an academy in one of the civilized nations, where they 
exist and are conducted under the auspices of Indians — 
by encouraging these schools and placing the young 
savage among his kind, where he will feel more at home ; 



encourage 



all religious denominations to establish 



churches and schools among them, and aid these relig- 
ious schools in a moderate and prudent way; dispense 
with every civilian employe' at the agencies except the 
interj^reters, physicians, engineers, teachers, farmers, 
millers, carj^enters and blacksmiths required by the 
treaties. Detail from the Army and take from the retired 
list officers to serve as agents, inspectors and superin- 
tendents, and non-commissioned officers or privates to act 
as clerks. Abolish the Indian police, and, instead of 
encouraging them to ride about in idleness and depend 
upon the Government for rations and a salary, teach 
them to rely upon their own exertions for a support, and 
detail non-commissioned officers and privates, changing 
them from time to time, to act as a police and keep from 
among the Indians bad white men who violate the inter- 
course laws; let the Government protect them from the 
greed of white men who seek a lodgment among them 
with a view to despoil them of their substance ; allot 
their lands in severalty among them, not by force, but 
when it is desired, and teach them to value homes that 
shall not be taken from them, and U2:>on which they may 
realize the hopes and aspirations of free and independent 
men, and where their labor wall be bestowed for their 
own comfort without the fear of loss or interference with 
their concerns and pursuits. Do these things with the 



JAMES W. THROCKMORTON. 197 

wilder tribes, and teach them to rely on their own exer- 
tions, and by j^atient persistence in this policy you will 
gradually make progress with the present generation and 
greatly elevate succeeding ones. 

"And lastly, I would suggest a commission to be 
organized under the direction of the Interior Department, 
whose duty it shall be to investigate the Indian depreda- 
tion claims, as is now being done under the directions of 
the act of last Congress, but instead of reporting the 
claims back to Congress give them the powers of a court 
of equity, and authorize them to send for additional evi- 
dence if deemed necessary on the j^art of the Govern- 
ment, with the right of the claimant to introduce addi- 
tional testimony, and as each claim is finally made up 
direct a judgment to be rendered by such commission, 
and when that judgment is rendered make it final. If in 
favor of the claimant for any sum, the name of the party 
and tribe of Indians committing the depredations, and 
the amount found to be due, to be certified to Congress for 
an appropriation to pay the same. Out of the sales to 
the Government of the surplus reservations of the sev- 
eral tribes the Government should be reimbursed for any 
payments made under the provisions of this regulation. 

"The Government having been at fault so long in not 
withholding sufficient sums to pay the approved depre- 
dation claims should proceed at once to discharge its 
obligations to its own people, and no longer delay an act 
of justice so strongly demanded by every reason of 
humanity, honesty and fair dealing. * The economies and 
reforms proposed by me would be just and generous to 
all the nations and tribes of Indians with whom we have 



198 OUR GREAT MEN. 

treaty relations ; they respond in a fair and liberal spirit 
to the promptings and demands of humanity; it would 
enable the Government, without imposing new burdens 
upon its Treasury, to meet just obligations long since 
due to its own despoiled, long-suffering citizens ; it would 
result in much needed reforms of abuses that have for 
many years been corrupting a part of the civil service of 
the Government, and infuse into our Indian management 
an energy and efficiency sadly needed, and which would 
result in the greatest good to every interest concerned." 




HON. ZEBULON B. VANCE, 

OF NORTH CAEOLINA. 




EBULON B. VANCE, of Charlotte, was 
born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, 
May 13th, 1830. He received his education 
I at Washington College, Tennessee; Ash- 
ville Academy, North Carolina; and the University of 
North Carolina. He was admitted to the Bar early in 
1852, and the same year was elected County Attorney for 
Buncombe County. 

He was a member of the North Carolina House of 
Commons in 1854, and was a Representative from North 
Carolina in the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses. 
He abandoned Congressional halls in 1861 to follow the 
god of war, and volunteered as Captain in the Confed- 
erate Army, but was soon promoted to Colonel of the 
Twenty-sixth North Carolina Regiment. In August, 
1862, he was elected Governor of North Carolina, and 
was re-elected in 1864. 

He was elected to the United States Senate in 1870, 
but was refused admission because his disabilities had 
never been removed. In January, 1872, he resigned, 
and in the same year was Democratic nominee for the 
United States Senate, but was defeated in the election by 

(201) 



202 OUR GREAT MEN. 

a combination of straying Democrats and Republicans. 
In 1876 he was elected Governor for the third time. 

The winter of 1878-79 he was elected United States 
Senator; and since he has been there has well demon- 
strated the wisdom of his constituents in electing him to 
re2:>resent them in the Senatorial Chamber of the Nation. 

The following are extracts from a speech made by Mr. 
Vance on Civil - Service Reform. Mr. Vance said: 

"At the close of the great civil war, when the party 
then in power desired to reconstruct a portion of this 
Government on principles which would secure its denom- 
ination, it so haj)pened that a constitutional President 
stood in the way. It was necessary to divest him of his 
prerogative before that party could accomj^lish its uncon- 
stitutional object, and a regular attack upon his rightful 
i:>owers was begun by the passage of the tenure-of-officc 
law. But soon after Mr. Johnson's term of office had 
expired — his successor being one who was in sympathy 
with the party then in jiower — the necessity for that law 
was no longer felt; that is to say, the offices could be 
secured without it. The law, therefore, was modified. 
But the remnant of it was left on the statute book as a 
reminder of the iniquity, to be brought up again when 
necessary. That necessity, however, did not arise until 
after the ^^residential election of 1884, when a Democrat 
was chosen to fill that office. But being wise in their 
generation, and fearing that for want of control of both 
Houses of Congress it might not be able to resurrect 
that law, the Republican party fell uj^on the plan of per- 
petuating the official existence of its friends by the enact- 
ment of a law 'to regulate and improve the civil service 



ZEBULON B.- VANCE. 203 

of the country.' It was a continuation of the old assault 
upon the rights of the Executive ; and all of the present 
troubles between the Executive and the Senate are due 
and chargeable to that enactment. And I propose to 
address myself to that law, a bill for the repeal of which 
I heretofore had the honor of introducing. But before 
addressing myself to either the unconstitutionality or 
imjDolicy of that enactment, I wish to say that one of my 
chief objections to it, and to all other laws which restrict 
or intrench upon the established rights and prerogatives 
of any department of the Government, is the tendency 
to defeat the will of the people as expressed at pop- 
ular elections, and to that extent to impair and destroy 
the vigor and efficiency of political parties in this 
country. 

"Mr. President, in the broadest and most comprehen- 
sive sense of the term, I avow myself a party man ; not 
from natural pugnacity of temper, not because of preju- 
dice against those who may differ with me, nor yet 
because I believe there are no evils inseparably con- 
nected with party organization, but because I do believe 
most earnestly that jDarties are indisj)ensable to the exist- 
ence of liberty, and that a government by party is the 
only way in which there can be government by the 
people. 

"'Party,' says Edmund Burke, 'is a body of men 
united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national 
interest upon some j^articular principle in which they are 
all agreed. Men thinking freely will, in particular 
instances, think differently. But still, as the greater 
part of the measures which arise in the course of public 



204 OUR GREAT MEN. 

business are related to, or dependent on, some great lead- 
ing, general principles in government, a man must be 
peculiarly unfortunate in the choice of his political com- 
pany if he does not agree with them at least nine times 
in ten. And this is all that ever was required for a char- 
acter of the greatest uniformity and steadiness in connec- 
tion. How men can proceed without connection at all is 
to me incomprehensible.' 

" Said Horace Walpole : * * * ' I have a maxim — 
that the extinction of party is the origin of faction.' And 
Horace Walpole ought to have known. In my honest 
opinion, no more unmistakable sign of the decay of pub- 
lic virtue in politics has been furnished by American 
history than the rise, if, indeed, it can be said to have 
arisen, of that maudlin 23olitical sentiment which we 
recognize, for want of a better, under the name of ' Mug- 
wumpish,' a kind of sickly, sentimental, Sunday-school, 
' Goody Two-shoes ' party, which appears desirous of 
ruling the world, not as God has made it, but as they 
would have it. 

* * * « « 

"The passage of the civil-service law, as I have inti- 
mated, was an attack upon the rightful j)i'erogative of the 
Executive, and a blow aimed at the integrity of political 
parties. It will be felt in all that parties are intended 
to preserve — the institutions of our country. The corner- 
stones of those institutions are : 

^^ First. The eligibility of all qualified freemen to 
hold office, and therefore the right to seek office at the 
source of power. 

" Second. A brief term of office. 



ZEBULO^ B. VANCE. 205 

" Tliird. A direct and immediate responsibility of all 
elective officers to the people. 

^^ Fourth. A mediate and direct responsibility of all 
appointed officers to tbe people, througli the direct and 
immediate responsibility of the appointing power. 

"All these essential features of our Constitution of 
government are contravened by this law known as the 
civil-service act. 

"Every citizen of the United States is qualified by 
law to hold any office unless the disqualification appear 
in the Constitution itself. The only disqualifications 
found in that instrument are those contained in the four- 
teenth amendment thereto, for participation in rebellion; 
the requirement that the President of the United States 
shall be a native and thirty-five years old ; that Senators 
shall have been nine years residents of the States for 
which they may be chosen, and thirty years old, and that 
Representatives shall be twenty-five years old, and seven 
years inhabitants of the States from which they may be 
chosen. With these exceptions, every citizen of the 
United States is qualified by the Constitution and laws 
thereof to hold any office under the Government, 
and therefore entitled to seek any office, elective or 

appointive. 

****** 

" By the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution it 
is provided that ' No State shall make or enforce any law 
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citi- 
zens of the United States.' 

"Of course, then, Congress has no right to make such 
a law which it has forbidden the States to make, unless 

13 



206 OUR GREAT MEN. 

such i^ower be clearly found in the Constitution. But 
there is no such power there ; nor is there any there from 
which that power might be derived by necessary implica- 
tion. By no process of logic can it be shown that the 
prohibition of the exercise of a power residing in a State 
by implication confers that power upon Congress. Noth- 
ing but express words or necessary implication can confer 
any power whatever upon the General Grovernment. 
Here there are neither express words nor necessary 
implication from express words authorizing any such 
power. In truth, the express objects of the Constitution 
in all its grants of power are intended mainly to preserve 
and enlarge, rather than to destroy or abridge, the rights 
of citizens. Having no right then by law to abridge the 
rights of citizens of the United States, it necessarily fol- 
lows that Congress can pass no law which permits any 
one else to do so. It can not, of course, delegate a power 
which it does not j^ossess. 

"I maintain that the civil-service law and the regula- 
tions prescribed thereunder manifestly do abridge the 
rights of citizens of the United States to apply for and 
receive office. In the lexicons the Avord 'abridge' is 
defined to mean 'to contract, to diminish.' Now, let us 
see if any man's rights have been contracted or dimin- 
ished by this law and the regulations made under its 
authority. 

" On the morning, we will say, of the 15th of January, 
1883, any citizen of the United States not included within 
the disqualifications of the Constitution already mentioned, 
had the undisputed right to apply to and receive fi'om 
the President, one of the heads of the Executive Depart- 



ZEBULOX B. VANCE. 207 

ments, the courts of law — wherever the appointing power 
was lodged — any office which it was lodged — any office 
which it was in their power under the Constitution to 
give ; and this without reference to the age, the scholar- 
ship, the State residence, or to the bibulous propensities 
or personal habits of the citizen. These, and all other 
requisites touching his fitness, were left in the sole discre- 
tion of the power which ajopoints him. And this uncon- 
trolled power to judge and to choose constituted an 
important part of his rights in the premises ; ' and wher- 
ever the power is lodged there it must remain,' says Mr. 
Cooley on constitutional limitations. On the morning of 
the 17th of January, 1883, the citizen awoke and found: 

^^ First. That neither the President, the courts of 
law, nor the heads of Departments could appoint him 
to any place within the classified department service, the 
classified customs service, or the classified postal service, 
unless he were recommended by three men whose func- 
tions were first established by a law approved on the day 
before. 

^''Second. That had he been over thirty-five years 
old, not all the appointing power mentioned in the 
Constitution, aided by that mentioned in the recently 
approved law, could have appointed him to any place 
within the classified postal service, or to any place in the 
classified customs service, or classified departmental serv- 
ice had he been under twenty-one or over forty-five 
years old. 

" Third. That no one, or all of them combined, could 
have appointed him to any place within the classified 
service had he been a citizen of a State which had more 



208 OUR GREAT MEN. 

than a certain proportion of appointments with reference 
to j)opulation. 

^^ Fourth. That he could not have been appointed 
legally to any office in the classified service if two mem- 
bers of his family were already in the public service. 

'^ Fifth. That had he been examined and found qual- 
ified, he could not then have presented himself and been 
appointed, even though the appointing power had desired 
it; but would have been compelled to wait until the 
board of commissioners had seen proper to present his 
name, and if it did not see fit to do so within a certain 
time his name would have been dropped from the list 
of ' eligible' never to be presented. And lastly, that he 
could not anywhere approach the appointing power to 

ask for j^osition. 

* * . * « * * 

" This civil-service law is the second attempt to recur 
to Hamiltonian principle, and is most cunningly begun at 
the bottom, where it would attract the least attention and 
indignation. Well did the late President G-arfield say 
the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton is waxing and that 
of Thomas Jefferson is waning. Had he happily lived 
until to-day and seen the operation of this law, and been 
a witness to the position which the Senate of the United 
States is now occupying, he would have been astonished 
at the rapid verification of his utterance. 

"If the Chief Magistrate can hold his office for four 
years only, why should a clerk hold his for life ? If the 
President, after four years of diligent and patriotic serv- 
ice, must submit himself and his deeds again to the 
judgment of his fellow-citizens, why should his subordi- 



ZEBULON B. VANCE. 209 

nates be granted exemption from like submission and be 
endowed witb official immortality ? It works well they 
say ; the longer the clerk serves the more competent he is 
to serve well. Is not the same true of a President ? Is 
not the same true of a Senator, a Representative, and all 
other officers ? If the system works well with the minor 
officer, will it not work equally well with the major? 
And if that be true, will we not soon begin to extend it? 
Indeed it was announced in the discussion of the bill that 
it was tentative, and it was intended to be extended, as 
experience justified, to the whole civil service of the 
Grovernment. In fact, has not the President of the 
United States pledged himself, with certain reservations, 
in obedience to a supposed public opinion, to extend the 
spirit of the law beyond its legal efi"ect to all the higher 
appointments which pertain to him? If that be so, is 
not that the waxing of the principles of Alexander Ham- 
ilton and the waning of those of Thomas Jefferson ? 

t|s fls -ffi 7^ V * 

"We were often told in the debate upon the bill of 
the excellence of the British system of civil service, 
which, it was said, was not changed with every adminis- 
tration. Of course not. The executive power of Great 
Britain is hereditary, and changes only at the death of 
the monarch. The administration, however, changes at 
will, and may change every week; therefore, the idea of 
life tenure for executive officers is consistent with an 
executive for life; therefore, an official class of life-long 
tenure is consistent with monarchical and aristocratical 
government, which is peculiarly a government of classes. 
But it is not consistent with a democratic government 



210 OUK GREAT MEN. 

and a short-lived executive, where no class is recognized 
bj law, and all men are equal. 

"When the people of England, through their repre- 
sentatives in the House of Commons, desire a change in 
the administration of the Government, they simply vote 
a want of confidence in that government. The executive 
officers in power are not changed otherwise than so far 
as the change of policy may require. That is all that is 
expected or desired. Besides, as the executive there was 
hereditary, there was no way of avoiding corrupt or ineffi- 
cient minor officers except by competitive examinations. 
There was no resj^onsibility to the people for bad appoint- 
ments. Here there is such responsibility ; here all is 
different. When the j^eople elect a President avowing a 
different policy from that of his ^predecessor, they thereby 
declare not only for a change of policy, but for a change 
in the 2^e'^so7inel of the Government as well. This has 
been the universal custom to the j)i'esent day. The 
peo]3le expect the man of their choice whom they have 
elected to remove those in office and aj^point every man 
whom he may deem necessary to the effectual carrying 
out, not of his, but of their will. And especially was 
this true of the last Presidential election, which was 
influenced more by the desire for a thoroughly radical 
change in the ijersonnel of the late Administration than 
for any other consideration whatever. The proof of this 
was the universal cry, the ^^arty slogan, ' Turn the rascals 
out!' It was said, and justly said, that so long a con- 
tinuance in power of one set of officials Avas hurtful to 
liberty and public integrity ; that wrongs and corruj)tions 
would naturally cree]) into official life, and remain unex- 



ZEBULON B. VANCE. 211 

posed if new men did not frequently come in to investi- 
gate and denounce them. The people willed this in 1884. 
Their will has not been respected. Their President's 
hands were bound by this civil-service law which he had 
promised to maintain, and they were further bound by 
his own extra legal promises to carry the spirit of that 
law into his whole Administration. They are still bound 
by the presence of innumerable political enemies who 
surround him on every hand. And even in the few cases 
where he has attempted to surround himself with men in 
sympathy with him and with those who elected him, a 
hostile Senate stands ready to thwart him by the use not 
only of its confirming power, but by the usurpation of a 
power which does not belong to it, for the purpose of 
keeping the friends of the majority in office at any cost. 
« * * * * * 

"But if this law were constitutional, which it is not; 
if it were fair to all classes of citizens, which it is not ; if 
it were just in its operations upon the one party as well 
as the other, which it is assuredly not — still I would deny 
that it is wise and business-like. I believe it is not a 
better method than the old one, and the various heads of 
Departments have not yet said that clerks given to them 
under the civil-service law are better than those they had 
before. They do say, however, that it saves them a vast 
deal of importunity, and that is the most they have said 
in its favor. I have heard of many instances where the 
appointees under the new system have proven quite as 
inefficient and awkward as any others. 

"There seems to be an impression that the further 
you can get from the people the less importunity there 



212 OUR GREAT MEN, 

will be and the better officers you will get. In my judg- 
ment the man who can not endure these importunities is 
entirely too good and too patriotic and too virtuous to 
hold office in a free country, and should be permitted to 
retire beyond the reach of such an annoyance, unless he 
can say that he has not himself spent the greater part of 
his life in importuning other j^eojole for office. In my 
judgment there is no more safe or j^urer source of office 
in a free country than the people ; and the man who 
desires to get away from that source should immediately 
become the subject of the like desire on their part to get 
away from him. I believe that when executive officers 
were appointed under the old system on the recommenda- 
tion of members of Congress, if you please, better selec- 
tions were made than have been or will be made by the 
Civil Service Commission, and I know they were more 
resj^onsive to the popular will. To say nothing of the 
Presidential responsibility of the Representatives, who 
are fresh from the j^eople, directly accountable to them 
twice as often as the Executive, and who have also a per- 
sonal acquaintance with the constituents whom they 
recommend. Most of them have had this personal 
knowledge for a lifetime, and are, therefore, infinitely 
better judges of their fitness than would be three 
strangers who may see them for the first time when they 
appear for examination, and when, in the brief space of 
perhaps an hour, they may ask them a few questions. 

" Recently the members of the Commission aj^peared 
before the Civil Service Reform Committee in the House 
of Representatives, and, Avhile they acknowledged the 



ZEBULON B. VANCE. 213 

gross injustice that had been done one section of the 
country, advised strongly against trying to remedy it, for 
the reason that it would make the law unpopular in the 
K'orth, where its chief supporters were. That is to say, 
they advised that injustice must be perpetuated because 
justice would oifend the stronger party ! That is to say, 
that the South must submit to being denied an equal par- 
ticipation in the government of their country because the 
North, perhaps, would not like it ! That is to say, that 
the States thus deprived, being Democratic States, the 
Democratic party and a Democratic Administration must 
be the instruments to sustain a law for the benefit of the 
Republican party lest the Republican party should not 
like it ! 

"By an examination of the 'Blue Book,' or 'Official 
Register,' just prior to the date of the passage of the 
civil-service law, it will be seen that in the Department 
at Washington there were 7,273 employes, of whom but 
1,353 were from the South. The State of North Carolina, 
of this number, was credited with 71, and of these 71 
quite a number were persons who had, perhaps, never 
seen the State — certainly had no residence there. They 
were distributed in the various departments as follows 
Department of the Interior, 17 ; Department of State, 1 
Department of the Navy, none ; Department of War, 1 
Department of the Treasury, 45 ; Post-office Department, 
6; Department of Justice, 1. Now, considering that 
North Carolina is one of the thirty-eight States, and has 
a population of 1,500,000, and is entitled, therefore, to at 
least five times that number of positions under the Gov- 
ernment if she had her rights under the law, and that the 



214 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Board of Civil Service Commissioners refused to remedy 
this injustice, it can not be wondered at that there is dis- 
content in that State and in all others similarly situated. 

^w ^ ^P ^f ^p "^ 

"The behavior of the Republican advocates of this 
law about the time of its passage was not only remarka- 
ble, it was shameless. In the face of their allegations 
that the spoils system was corru23t, and that by it we 
could not possibly get good and com23etent officials, they 
not only defeated by a solid vote in the Senate the amend- 
ment of Mr. Pugh, as I have stated, requiring their 
friends already in to submit to examination, but they 
made haste to fill every possible vacancy with their parti- 
sans before the law took effect. It is an open secret that 
on Saturday, the 14th of July, some of the heads of 
Departments in this city spent the day and night, far into 
Sunday morning, in filling every vacancy, promoting their 
friends and kin and degrading their political enemies. 
The law was to go into effect on the 15th of July. Quite 
a number of new clerks had been provided for by the 
a]3propriation bills for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 
and a full supply of applicants had already passed the 
civil-service examination and stood by waiting for the law 
to go into effect. But when the offices opened on Mon- 
day, the 16th, not a vacant place was anywhere to be 
found. Every one was occuj)ied by a Republican or 
kinsman of the appointing officer ; and the men who j)er- 
petrated this fraud on their own law, with the cheek of a 
town cow, cry ' Spoilsman ! ' at every man who denounces 
their hypocrisy ; and Democrats are found who by their 
votes here sustain these men in the retention of their ill- 



ZEBULON B. VANCE. 215 

gotten spoils, and who seem to think that fraud and 
hypocrisy constitute the necessary overture to the grand 
symphony of reform. 

"The meaning of all this is, the Republicans desire 
office from pure patriotism; the Democrats wish office 
simply for the emoluments. For a Republican to hold 
office after the people have told him to leave is com- 
mendable and pure ; for a Democrat to wish to get one 
after the people have declared for him is reprehensible 
and base. Now, grant that the offices belong to neither 
party, but to the people, for whose benefit they were 
instituted; when the people have once spoken, and 
declared by a constitutional majority that the Republi- 
cans must go out and Democrats come in, which of the 
two displays the most attachment to the spoils, he who 
desires them with the consent of the people, or he who 
holds on to them in defiance of the wishes of the people ? 
If the owner of a house desires his two guests to depart, 
which of the two is the gentleman, he who retires on 
the first intimation of his host, or he who lingers, claims 
the house, and waits to be kicked out? 

« m * * * ^ 

"Conceive of an old-fashioned fighting Democrat, who 
for forty years had stood by his party through good and 
evil report, because he believed in its principles ; who 
battled for it when it had no offices to give ; many times 
when it was buried beneath such vast majorities as left 
scarce a prospect of earthly resurrection ; often oppressed 
by a weight of odium sufficient to cow the bravest spirit, 
under the influence of which the faithful became even 
as the 'few names in Sardis, who had not defiled their 



216 OUR GREAT MEN. 

garments ' — when the very name of Democrat became a 
convertible term with that of copperhead, rebel and 
traitor — fancy his iinconquered and undismayed soul still 
working for his principles, still watching for the dawn, 
still waiting with prayerfulness for the hope of his polit- 
'ical Israel, thanking God for each town, township or 
county victory which showed that his principles still 
lived in the hearts of his countrymen, and were growing 
because they were immortal — quicker and quicker throbs 
his heart, higher and higher rises his joy as stronghold 
after stronghold is carried, as State after State is cap- 
tured in spite of unconstitutional laws and governmental 
interference, in spite of bayonets glittering at the polls, 
in spite of that gross and unblushing fraud which is the 
supplement of despair; and, lastly, imagine, if you can, 
the hot tide of triumphant joy with which he saw in 
K'ovember, 1884, the banners of Democracy full high 
advanced and successful over all the Union, and his 
party once more in control of the great destinies of his 
country. When the hope of his soul had thus been at 
last realized, and his old eyes had been permitted to 
behold the great salvation, when bonfires kindled in a 
thousand cities and hamlets had burned down, and the 
feasting had ended, and the oratory and all the elements 
of rejoicing had subsided, and the new Administration 
had begun its career amid the j^rayers and blessings of 
all Democratic hearts; imagine, I say, this old, faithful 
and honest man of principle coming to Washington, in 
the simj)licity of his heart bringing certificates from his 
neighbors of his character and services, and modestly 
asking for a position, naturally supposing that the king 



ZEBULON B. VANCE. 217 

in making up his jewels would remember his faithful 
servants. But imagine that old gentleman's disappoint- 
ment when something like the following occurs between 
him and the Government's representative: 

" Old Democrat. ' I have come to make application for 
some position under the Government which I am compe- 
tent to fill.' 

" Government Bepresentative. 'You are too old; under 
laws of the Republic men over forty-five years old are 
not permitted to take ofiice.' 

" 0. -D. ' But I see men in places here who are sixty 
years old.' 

" 6^. i?. ' Oh, they were in when the law was enacted, 
and it does not operate on them.' 

"(9. B. 'Well, if such be the law, I submit; it may 
be that I am too old. But here is my boy; he is 
young and active and well educated; give him a 
position.' 

"6^. a. ' We can not do it; there is no vacancy.' 

"(9. D. 'No vacancy? Well, make one. There is a 
rank Republican. That man has been our bitterest 
enemy. He has denounced me and my party as traitors 
to our country again and again. Turn him out and put 
in my son or my neighbor's son.' 

^^ G. B. 'It can not be, sir. The law forbids it; and, 
besides, if there was a vacancy your son could not get the 
place unless he stood an examination by the Board of 
Civil Service Commissioners and secured the favor of 
that board over many others.' 

"(9. D. 'Well! well! Did all those Republicans 
in there have to stand such an examination and get 



218 OUR GREAT MEN. 

their places in the same way? If so, and they were 
smarter than the Democrats, again I say, I will have to 
submit.' 

"G^. B. 'Oh, no, my dear sir, no! You see they 
were all in when the law was enacted. They got in by 
that old corrupt method which we call 'the spoil' sys- 
tem. But being in, you see they had a sort of vested 
right to their places, and the law does not disturb vested 
rights, that is Republican rights, except for very serious 
cause.' 

" 0. D. ' Then, it seems to me there is nothing here 
for me or mine, and all that talk during the campaign 
about corruption in office, and turning the rascals out, 
was a trick and a lie. It appears that there were no ras- 
cals in, or, if there were, you like rascals better than 
you do honest men, and so keep them.' 

"6^. B. 'Old man, you had better go home; you are 
behind the times. This is an age of civil-service reform. 
Men can no longer be rewarded by office for party work ; 
that is, humble men like you and your son. The big 
ones may be paid that way; for that is true reform. 
But when such men as you confess that they want office 
they are spoilsmen, and that is what you are. I am 
ashamed of you ! Away with you ! ' 

"This final and insulting reply is the iron which 
enters his soul, and he retires crushed and wounded 
beyond recovery. The sense of disappointment, of in- 
justice, of humiliation, the ingratitude of those for whom 
ho labored, are too much for him to endure, and the 
enthusiasm of his life is quenched forever. The man 
who calls him a spoilsman, and charges that he served his 



ZEBULON B. VANCE. 219 

party for the sake of office only, foully belies a better 
man than himself. 

" This, Mr. President, is no fancied picture. There 
are thousands and thousands of just such men, and we 
meet them or hear from them every day. They are the 
strength of the Democratic party to-day ; they have been 
its refuge and its shield in the past; they j^reserved it 
from annihilation in its darkest hours. I am not quite 
sure that they will continue its champions in the future. 
I can well see that they might be willing to concede any 
fair and impartial distribution of the places under the 
Government on principle of merit or anything else that 
patriotism might demand of them, but they will not 
submit to the disfranchisement of themselves and their 
children. Mark what I say ! And you will not improve 
the matter by impeaching the purity of their motives and 
bestowing epithets upon them. They will not fight to 
win great Democratic victories for Republican benefit. 
They will not continue to rally to the bugles of the party 
and win hard-fought battles merely that their enemies 
may remain in possession of the field. They will not 
preserve the discipline and organization of their splendid 
line of battle and charge with their ancient courage if 
the epaulets and honors which they win are to be 
bestowed upon their adversaries, or cowards who skulked 
in the rear, or the mercenaries who hung upon the flanks 
of the contending parties, alternately firing upon each host. 
The mass of the people on both sides demand an open fight, 
and upright and downright dealing after the fight. They 
believe, too, in the common virtues of humanity, among 
the most noble of which is reckoned gratitude. And so 



220 OUR GREAT MEN. 

do I. They believe that if a man's friends take him up 
and enable him, after a great struggle, to arrive at the 
point coveted by his ambition he owes something to 
them. And so do I. They believe that, other things 
being equal, in the bestowal of favors that man should 
give preference to his friends over his enemies. And so 
do I. They believe that the man who is lacking in the 
ordinary sentiment of gratitude may be likewise wanting 
in other kindred and cardinal virtues. And so do I. 

"And yet, Mr. President, I believe in reform — such 
reform as the people want, and have been wanting for 
ten years or more. Between those who call me a spoils- 
man and myself there is perhaps only a difference of 
definition. They believe that 'reform' consists in 
a Democratic administration operated by Republican 
agents ; I do not. They believe in keeping Republicans 
in office by law after the people have declared they shall 
go out ; I do not. They believe in ignoring the people 
and their representatives as far as possible in the selec- 
tion of officials ; I do not. They believe there can be no 
sincere reform unless Republicans are the chief benefi- 
ciaries thereof; I do. And, lastly, I believe that as good 
material for all civil officials is to be found in the Demo- 
cratic party as in any other, and that it is the right and 
duty of a Democratic administration to select that mate- 
rial, and none other, as the implements of reform; they 
do not. 

"Let me warn men against those who assume to be 
above the homely virtues and common frailties of our 
race, and who affect to inhabit the untrodden altitudes of 
a world different from the one where our Creator has 



ZEBULON B. VANCE. 221 

» 

placed us, and deny being of the earth, earthy. A man 
too good in politics or religion is quite as reprehensible 
as one too bad, and I am quite sure he is a greater nui- 
sance. For the most part they are men who have failed 
in securing the objects of their own ambition, and may 
be described either as political old maids whose blood 
has been turned to vinegar by a failure to secure lovers 
before their unappreciated charms had fled, or as the 
grass widows of politics who have failed to retain lovers 
they had won by artifice and fraud. They are men who 
desire to conduct politics without the aid of the politi- 
cians ; who believe that the most successful way to oper- 
ate mechanics is to work them without implements. 

"Let such, in God's name, on fine wheat be fed. 
And let us honest Democrats eat barley bread." 




Hon. nelson DINGLEY, Jr., 



or MAINE. 




ELSON DINOLEY, Jr., of Lewiston, who 
rej^resents the Second Congressional Dis- 
trict of Maine in the Congress of the 
United States, was born in Durham, Andros- 
coggin County, Maine, February 15th, 1832. He is an 
alumnus of Dartmouth College, graduating there in the 
class of 1855. He studied law and was admitted to the 
Bar, but never followed the profession, preferring the 
life of a journalist. He became proprietor and editor 
of the Lewiston (Maine) Journal in 1856, and is still con- 
nected with that journal. 

He was a member of the State House of Representa-, 
tives in 1862, '63, '64, '65, '68 and '73, serving as 
Speaker of the House during the sessions of 1863 and 
'64. He was Governor of Maine in 1874 and '75. In 
1874 Bates College conferred on him the degree of Doc- 
tor of Laws. 

He was a Delegate to the National Bej^ublican Con- 
vention in 1876. At a sj^ecial election, the 12th of 
September, 1881, he was elected, as a Republican, to fill 
a vacancy in the House of Representatives of the Forty- 
seventh Congress, caused by the election of Hon. W. P. 

(222) 



NELSON DINGLE Y, JR. 223 

Frye to the United States Senate. He was re-elected to 
the Forty-eighth Congress, and also to the Forty-ninth 
Congress. 

In quite an extensive speech on free ships Mr. Ding- 
ley said: 

"The statement, therefore, that all maritime nations 
except the United States have adopted the free-ship pol- 
icy is incorrect so far as it conveys the impression that 
the other maritime nations with which we are in compe- 
tition treat foreign-built vessels the same as vessels 
constructed in their own yards — England alone excepted. 
France pays a construction bounty to vessels built in 
her own yards, and a double navigation bounty to such 
vessels. Italy pays a construction bounty for vessels 
built in her own yards. Germany, in her latest subven- 
tions to German steamship lines, insists that the vessels 
shall be constructed in her own yards. England alone 
maintains the free-ship policy in practice, and simply 
for the reason that her insular position, the fortunate 
juxtaposition of coal and iron mines near her sea-shore, 
and her cheap labor to work them, enables her to build 
her steam vessels in competition with the world. But 
even England sees to it that British steamship lines 
receive the benefit of her large postal subsidies. Sev- 
eral years ago a contract for carrying British mails was 
given to a German line, but as soon as the fact became 
generally known a protest was made in the House of 
Commons and was responded to with loud cheers, and 
since that time the British authorities have not ventured 
to make a practical application of the free-ship policy in 
the distribution of postal subsidies. 



224 OUR GREAT MEN. 

" The fact remains that every maritime nation has 
gained its position on the ocean by adopting such a pol- 
icy as would enable them to build their own vessels; 
and that no nation has gained a commanding 2)osition on 
the ocean which has relied upon foreign ship-yards for 
the construction of her ships. 

"Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I protest against the 
pending bill as not only the confessed abandonment of 
the ship-building industry in this country, but also as the 
ado2)tion of a policy which will lead to the gradual 
extinguishment of that maritime spirit which leads to 
the navigation of the ocean. We may rest assured that 
if we can not devise a policy which will enable us to 
build our own vessels we shall utterly fail to maintain 
maritime enterprises. Ship-building and ship-using are 
not antagonistic, as some free-ship advocates would have 
us believe, but in every nation rise and fall together. 

"My friend from Arkansas seems to look forward to 
the admission of foreign-built vessels into our coastwise 
trade as aifording a compensation in breaking down what 
he calls a 'monopoly,' and reducing rates of freight to 
our peoiole. He overlooks the fact that the protection 
which has been given our vessels in the coastwise and 
internal trade has given the American people the lowest 
freight rates by water afforded by the home fleet of any 
nation, and at the same time has so promoted the inter- 
ests of that branch of our shijDping, that to-day it exhib- 
its a tonnage three times as large as the home fleet of 
Great Britain." 



Hon. NEWTON C. BLANCHARD. 



OF LOUISIANA. 




lEWTON CRAIN^ BLANCHARD, 

of Shreveport, Louisiana, was born in the 
Parish Rapides, Louisiana, on the 29th of 
January, 1849. On his father's side he is 
of Virginian parentage, and his mother was the daugh- 
ter of Colonel Robert A. Crain, of one of the old Mary- 
land families. He received an academical education, 
and commenced the study of law in the office of Ryan 
& White, at Alexandria, in 1868. In 1869 he entered 
the Law Department of the University of Louisiana, at 
New Orleans; graduated with the degree of Bachelor 
of Laws in 1870, and immediately commenced the 
practice of his chosen profession at Shreveport, Lou- 
isiana. 

After two years' practice he formed a copartnershijD 
with Major James S. Ashton, a lawyer of distinguished 
reputation ; and when, during the summer of 1873, the 
brilliant Mr. Ashton was numbered among the many 
victims of the yellow fever, which raged so fiercely there 
that summer, he found himself, at the early age of 
twenty-five, in possession of a practice it usually takes 
long years of incessant work and faithful service to 

(225) 



226 OUR GREAT MEN. 

acquire, and showed his ability to jorotect the trust com- 
mitted to his keeping. 

In 1879 he again formed a copartnershij), and this 
time with an old friend and classmate, Taliaferro Alex- 
ander. The law firm of Alexander & Blanchard is well 
and widely known, and ranks among the best. Their 
l^ractice is extensive and lucrative. 

In 1876 Mr. Blanchard was made Chairman of the 
Democratic Committee of Caddo Parish, and took an 
active part in the politics of the State, working for the 
restoration of the government of the State to the hands 
of her own people. Early in 1879 a call w^as made, by 
legislative enactment, for a Constitutional Convention. 
Caddo Parish elected Mr, Blanchard one of the three 
delegates to represent its Democracy in that Convention; 
and, though one of the youngest members of the Con- 
vention, he was made Chairman of its Committee on 
Federal Relations, besides occupying places on several 
other important committees. He soon earned and won 
an enviable reputation, both in the committee-room and 
in the body of the Convention. 

He was appointed by Governor Wiltz, of Louisiana, 
to the position of aide-de-camp on his staif, with the rank 
of Major, in the Louisiana State militia, and now holds 
the same position on the staif of the present Governor 
of the State, S. D. McEnery. He is a member of the 
Board of Trustees of the University of the South, at 
Scwanee, Tennessee. 

His life, both public and private, has been so satis- 
factory to the people of Caddo Parish that they, with 
other parishes of the Fourth Congressional District of 



NEWTON C. BLANCHAED. 227 

Louisiana, in 1880, tendered him the nomination on the 
Democratic ticket to represent them in the Congress of 
the United States. He was elected by an overwhelming 
majority to the Forty-seventh Congress, and was returned 
to the Forty-eighth Congress without opposition, and re- 
elected to the Forty-ninth Congress by a large majority. 
One of the best speeches Mr. Blanchard has deliv- 
ered was that on the bill making appropriations for the 
construction, repair and preservation of certain works on 
rivers and harbors, and for other purposes. 
Mr. Blanchard said: 

"It is my purpose at this time to confine myself to 
a discussion of that part of the bill under consideration 
which relates to the Mississippi River, and appropriates 
for its improvement the sum of |4,923,000, to be 
expended by the Secretary of War in accordance with 
the plans, specifications and estimates, and under the 
supervision of the Mississippi River Commission. 

" In view, sir, of the bitter experience through which 
the people, or a large number of the people, of the State 
which I have the honor to represent, in part, on the 
floor of this House, have just passed, in respect to the 
inundation which recently swept over their country — a 
calamity as appalling in contemplation of the human and 
animal suffering, woe and death which it entailed as it 
were potential in the destruction of property estimated 
and considered in the sense of a diminution of the aggre- 
gate of national wealth— in view, I say, of this experi- 
ence, of the m'ournful array of incontestible facts consti- 
tuting it, and considering the deep interest which the 
people of my State might naturally be expected to take 



228 OUR GREAT MEN. 

in the question under consideration, I trust I will be 
pardoned for asking the indulgence and attention of the 
House while I submit some observations in support of 
the appropriation alluded to. 

" ' The wisdom of Congress should be invoked to devise 
some plan by which that great river shall cease to be a 
terror to those who dwell upon its banks, and by which 
its shipping may safely carry the industrial products of 
twenty-five millions of people.' 

"So spoke James A. Garfield, late President of the 
United States, in his letter of July 10th, 1880, accepting 
the nomination for the Presidency conferred upon him 
by the Republican party. He reminded the country 
that, in order to secure to the Nation the control of the 
Mississij^j^i and its tributaries. President Jefi*erson had 
negotiated the purchase of a vast territory extending 
from the Grulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. 

"Prior to that utterance, from his place as a Repre- 
sentative upon this floor, he had declared that he 
believed that one of the grandest of our material 
national interests, one that is national in the largest 
material sense of the word, is this great river and its 
tributaries. His broad and liberal comprehension ena- 
bled him to grasp the mighty subject, for he ^^ronounced 
it 'the most gigantic, single, natural feature of our conti- 
nent, far transcending the glory of the ancient Nile or of 
any other river on the earth.' With prophetic vision he 
foresaw that its vast and growing interests would make 
themselves heard and felt, for he realized in anticipation 
that 'the statesmanship of America must grapple the 
problem of this mighty stream;' that 'it is too vast for 



NEWTON C. BLANCHARD. 229 

any State to handle; too much for any authority less than 
that of the Nation itself to manage.' 

"Sirs, in view of the recent bitter experience in the 
valley of the great stream, the time has come when the 
liberal-minded statesmanship of the country must rise 
equal to the emergencies of the hour, and ' devise a wise 
and comprehensive system that will harness the powers 
of this great river' to the preservation and development 
of the material interests of the country, and no longer 
permit the same, in unrestrained fury and wilder license, 
to spread havoc, ruin, desolation, destruction and despair 
over one of the very fairest portions of this boasted land 
of freedom and progress. 

"President Hayes, in his message of December, 1880, 
speaking of the Mississippi and its tributaries, said : 

" ' These channels of communication and interchange 
are the property of the Nation. Its jurisdiction is para- 
mount over their waters, and the plainest principles of 
public interest require their intelligent and careful super- 
vision, with the view to their protection, improvement, 
and the enhancement of their usefulness.' 

"Here, then, are presented the opinions on this sub- 
ject of the two Presidents of the Republic who immedi- 
ately preceded the present occupant of that chair. Both 
avowedly went beyond the mere question of the improve- 
ment of the navigation of the river. Both had in their 
minds, when giving utterance to the sentiments quoted, 
the ultimate idea of affording protection to those who 
dwell upon its banks, as well as offering greater facilities 
to the immense commerce borne upon its bosom. 

******* 



230 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



"This great Nation, with its fifty millions of people, 
its wonderful history, its immense wealth, its unparalleled 
resources, its prodigious enterprise, its onward march in 
all that constitutes greatness, glory and power, can not 
afford to permit the devastation of its fairest and most 
productive provinces by the great stream which God 
intended as a blessing, but which has often and but too 
recently shown its potency as an engine of destruction, 
and this because of man's failure to use the means at his 
command for the restraining of its fury. 

"When, in 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte consented, on 
behalf of France, to Mr. Jefferson's proposition for the 
purchase of the Louisiana territory, he is said to have 
remarked : 

" ' To emancipate nations from the commercial tyranny 
of England it is necessary to balance her influence by a 
maritime power that may one day become her rival ; that 
power is the United States. The English aspire to dis- 
pose of all the riches of the world. I shall be useful to 
the whole universe if I can prevent their ruling America 
as they rule Asia. They shall not have the Mississij^pi, 
which they covet.' 

"And when informed that the treaty of sale to the 
United States was consummated, he said : 

"'This accession of territory strengthens forever the 
power of the United States, and I have just given to 
England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble 
her pride.' 

" He foresaw that the nation which controlled the 
territory drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries j 
would hokl the key to America, and discerned that the. 



NEWTON C. BLANCHARD. 231 

immense possibilities offering in the develojDment of that 
wonderful country must, when realized, make its pos- 
sessor rich, great and powerful. We have, as a Nation, 
relatively reached that point already, but nothing com- 
pared to what we shall as, in the providence of God, the 
great work of development goes on. 

"An important step in that work of development is 
the protection of the richest portion of the country 
acquired by the treaty with France from the angry floods 
of the mighty river whose outlet into the Gulf we gained 
control of by the acquisition aforesaid. 

" Mr. Calhoun, in 1845, likened the Mississippi and its 
tributaries to an inland sea. Said he : 

" 'Regarding it as such, I am prepared to place it on 
the same footing with the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, the 
Chesai3eake and Delaware Bays, and the lakes, in refer- 
ence to the superintendence of the General Government 
over its navigation. It is manifest that it is far beyond 
the power of individuals or of separate States to super- 
vise it.' 

"Who doubts, if he were here to-day, he would raise 
his voice in advocacy of the General Government taking 
that step, germane to the improvement of the navigation 
of the river, and certainly essential to the development of 
its great interests — namely, the protection of the adjacent 
country from the periodical overflows of a national high- 
way. Individuals and separate States can no more handle 
this question of the prevention of inundation than they 
can the supervision and effectuation of systematic works 
of improvement of the navigation of the river. 

"As has been well said, 'the legitimate sphere of the 



232 OUR GREAT MEN. 

^Mississippi is the field of national commerce.' So it is 
that the improvement of its navigation and the construc- 
tion of works needful to restrain its floods within its 
channel are the province of the l!^ational Government. 

"Nineteen States, Mr. Speaker, and three Territories 
have a direct business interest in the river system formed 
by the Mississij)pi and its tributaries, and all the other 
States and Territories have an indirect interest. This 
system furnishes a connecting link between internal and 
international commerce. Considered as a drainage sys- 
tem, it extends through nearly the whole length of the 
United States, from Canada to the Gulf, and across more 
than half its width,. or from the summit of the Rocky 
Mountains to the summit of the Alleghanies. Of the 
manv divisions and subdivisions of the river, two hun- 
dred and forty are considered of sufficient importance to 
be named upon the river map in Walker's Statistical 
Atlas of the United States, and probably as many more 
streams of minor importance are omitted from the map. 

"Steamers can now transport freight in an unbroken 
bulk from Saint Anthony's Falls to the Gulf of Mexico, 
a distance of 2,161 miles, and from Pittsburgh to Fort 
Benton, Montana, 4,333 miles. Lighter craft can ascend 
the Alleghany, an extension of the Ohio River, to Clean, 
New York, 325 miles above Pittsburgh, and up the Mis- 
souri to Great Falls, near where that river leaves the 
Rocky Mountains. The total j^resent navigation of these 
rivers is about 16,000 miles, more than four times the 
length of the ocean line from New York to Liverpool, 
and more than four times the distance by rail across thej 
continent from New York to San Francisco. 



NEWTON C. BLANCHARD. 233 

"Estimating the length of the numerous non-naviga- 
ble streams which flow into the Mississippi and its trib- 
utaries — including that portion of the navigable streams 
above the highest point of navigation attainable — as 
equal to the total navigable length of the rivers, and we 
have an aggregate length of waterway of 32,000 miles, 
draining, gathering, receiving, concentrating, pouring its 
accumulation of floods through the parent trunk into 
the Gulf. 

"Should we wonder, then, that in seasons of high 
water the great river labors and travails and groans 
under the effort imposed upon it by nature of discharg- 
ing this superabundance of water into the sea ? 

"Should we be surprised that it often finds itself 

unable to do this with safety to the millions of dwellers 

upon its alluvial banks? Should we hesitate to assist 

nature in the performance of the great work ? 

****** 

"Already has this Government delayed too long in 
furnishing a greater degree of fostering care to that 
industry. And now that it has the best of pretexts for 
so doing, if pretexts are needed; now that the urgency 
upon it is so great; now that the full details of the late 
terrible scenes of suffering and destruction are fresh 
before it, let it not withhold its hand. Let it put it 
forth with sufficient might and power to result in the con- 
struction of such works of improvement and protection 
as will suffice to control the rising floods of angry waters, 
and thus, in humble and reverential imitation of the 
Divine Teacher of Galilee, say to them, 'Peace, be still.' 
****** 



234 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



"This do, Mr. Speaker, and once more will that 
lovely country — but for the floods, fit to have been 
selected as the original Garden of Eden — blossom again 
as the rose; again will its soil of wonderful fertil- 
ity bring forth seeds sown in its bosom 'an hundred 
fold;' again will teeming busy millions find secure and 
happy homes there; and again will thousands of sturdy 
immigrants, fleeing from the overcrowded provinces and 
marts of the Old World, seek settlements within its 
borders. 



* 



"But it may be argued, the delegation of power to 
Congress to 'repel invasions,' 'to protect the States 
against invasion,' has reference to a human foe. I grant 
that that is the usual and ordinary meaning or signifi- 
cance given to the term, and it is likely that the framers 
of the Constitution had in contemplation a human foe 
when they inserted that clause. The connection, too, in 
which it is used gives additional weight to that argu- 
ment. But still, the power conferred by the words, 'repel 
invasions' by the clause, 'The United States * * * 
shall protect each of them (the States) against invasion,' 
is a general one, and might well and reasonably include 
defending the country against danger or harm of any 
kind. 

"Suppose, sir, some monster, like the fabled dragon 
of ancient times, were to rise up out of the deep and 
invade the land, spreading devastation, destruction, pes- 
tilence and death around him. Does any one doubt the 
constitutional power and duty of Congress to 'repel' his 
invasion, to bring the strong arm of the Government to 



* 



NEWTOT^ C. BLAXCHARD. 235 

bear against him, to make war upon and kill and destroy 
him? I think not. And yet, sir, there are gentlemen 
on this floor who deny to Congress the power to ' repel ' 
the invasion of waters, to throttle the monster of inun- 
dation whose periodical visitation of the fairest portion 
of our country is but the recurring occasion for a perfect 
carnival of waste, ruin, rapine. 

"It is the duty of Congress to protect the States, or 
any one of them, against invasion. By 'invasion' is 
meant against harm or danger to the Government, the 
people, the country, threatened by an enemy. An enemy 
is only to be dreaded because of the suffering, destruc- 
tion, death, he may inflict. Judged by that standard, 
was not the recent great overflow in the alluvial basin of 
the Mississippi ' an enemy ? ' None will deny its potency 
as an engine of sufl'ering, destruction and death. Why, 
then, can not Congress under this clause of the Constitu- 
tion protect the Valley States against a recurrence of this 
'invasion' of waters? 

"Again, it is made the constitutional duty of Congress 
to protect each of the States, under certain conditions, 
against 'domestic violence.' Why not against the vio- 
lence of domestic waters ? I say ' domestic waters ' for 
the reason that it is a fact that all the water which seeks 
an outlet to the sea through the Mississippi is the drainage 
of the territory of the United States, and in that sense is 
domestic, as pertaining to home ; not foreign. 

« * * * * ♦ 

"Mr. Speaker, the Mississippi River is a great 
national highway. It belongs as much to the United 
States as would a great trunk line of railroad that had 



236 OUR GREAT MEN. 

been constructed, stocked, and was being run by the Gov- 
ernment. In the act of Congress enabling the people of 
Louisiana to form a constitution, there is a provision that 
the State convention shall 'pass an ordinance providing 
that the river Mississippi and the navigable rivers and 
waters leading into the same, or into the Gulf of Mexico, 
shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to 
the inhabitants of the said State as to other citizens of 
the United States.' And in the act for the admission of 
Louisiana, the above provision as to the navigation of the 
Mississippi is made one of the fundamental conditions 
of the admission. Similar conditions were likewise im- 
posed upon the admission of the States of Mississippi, 

Missouri and Arkansas. 

^ * * * * * 

" It can not, therefore, be doubted that the river, for 
all practical purposes, is the property of the General 
Government, and subject to its 'regulations,' whether as 
respects prescribing rules for governing the commerce 
and traffic which make use of it as a highway, or as 
respects controlling it in the sense of denying the domin- 
ion and jurisdiction of the States or other powers ; or as 
respects j^reventing the river from rising up out of its 
customary channel and spreading over the country. It 
is true, the banks of the river and the soil under the 
river belong respectively to the owners of the soil 
adjacent to the river, but no one will deny to the General 
Government the right to make use of the banks and soil 
in the erection of the works requisite to the proper 'reg- 
ulation ' of the river for all useful purposes. Should, 
however, this right be questioned, there can be no doubt 



NEWTON C. BLANCHARD. 237 

of the power of the Government, in the exercise of the 
prerogative of eminent domain, to appropriate whatever 
may be needed for the proper ' regulation ' of the river. 

" The law on this subject is universally recognized as 
laid down by Bynkershoek, that ' this eminent domain 
may be lawfully exercised whenever public necessity or 
public utility requires it.' 

"It may be objected by some, Mr. Speaker, that 
should the Federal Government provide the ways and 
means for the construction of a levee system for the pro- 
tection of the alluvial valley of the river, and as an 
adjunct to the improvement of its navigation, inasmuch 
as these levees will have to be constructed on the banks 
over which the jurisdiction of the States respectively 
extends, contention may arise between the State Govern- 
ment and the National Government on this point ; that 
the State Government may deny the right of the National 
Government to control the levees, to protect them after 
constructing them, and that the question thus raised may 
become a fruitful source of trouble between the sovereignty 
vested in the State and that reposing in the Federal Gov- 
ernment. 

" I am not one of those who apprehend that any 
trouble on this score would ever arise, but as a precau- 
tionary measure Congress might, if it sees fit, after hav- 
ing determined upon a levee system, enact that there 
should be no expenditure of money for such purpose 
within the territorial limits of a State until the State 
shall have ceded to the National Government the right to 
control and protect the public works to be constructed. 

* ^ iffl 4|r »|c 9p 

15 



238 OUR GREAT MEN. 

" If the Federal Government can legitimately spend 
millions in affording facilities to commerce by improving 
the low-water navigation of rivers, by parity of reasoning 
it may just as legitimately spend millions in improving 
the high-water navigation of rivers like the Mississippi 
liable to overflow their banks. And the weight of evi- 
dence is ten times over that, for the Mississippi and its 
tributaries ; a levee system is the most efficient method of 
imj)roving their high-water navigation. 

" By the navigation of rivers is meant not alone the 
passage of steamers and other craft up and down, but in 
a larger sense it includes likewise facilities for landing 
along the rivers, for the loading and unloading of car- 
goes, the taking on and putting off of passengers, etc. 
In other words, it embraces the affording of all needful 
facilities for intercourse, trade, traffic and commerce, 
besides the width, depth and extent of water requisite 
for the safe and easy passage of boats. 

"Again, navigation is only one of the elements of 
commerce. It is an element of commerce because it 
affords the means of transporting merchandise and the 
2:>roducts of the country, the interchange of wdiich is 
commerce itself. The river is but an instrument of 
commerce. 

" It is now conceded that Congress, under the com- 
mercial clause, may regulate railroads. May it not also 
regulate the Mississippi, a national highway, and an 
instrument which commerce makes use of, so as to pre- 
vent it disturbing the commerce and intercourse going 
on by rail and by land in its valley ? 



NEWTON C. BLANCHARD. 239 

"The term Ho regulate commerce' gives the power 
to restrain the destructive force of the thing used by 
commerce in its transactions. It is an incongruity to 
say that Congress, in the exercise of that power, may 
deepen or enlarge a river, but can not curb its force or 
exercise restraint over it. 

"The power 'to regulate commerce' necessarily 
includes protection to commerce. This idea has been 
acted on from the commencement of the Government. 
The construction and maintenance, all along our coasts, 
of light-houses, beacon-lights, fog-signals, sea-walls and 
breakwaters attest this. All are for the protection and 
convenience of commerce. 

" The laws of the United States require steam vessels 
to pay for the license or privilege to navigate ; and the 
officers manning such vessels are required to pay for the 
license or privilege of pursuing their respective calling 
or vocation, such as master, pilot, mate, etc. These ves- 
sels engage in the coasting trade as well as in the car- 
rying trade, and Congress is as much under obligations 
to afford needful facilities for the transaction of this 
coasting trade as it is for the transportation of through 
freights. One of the facilities needed along the Missis- 
sippi for the coasting trade is convenient landing-places 
at all times. 

" In seasons of flood these landing-places are supplied 
by the levees, and, in this sense, levees are but continu- 
ing piers or quays. A quay is defined to be a space of 
ground appropriated to the public use — such use as the 
convenience of commerce requires. Now, while the 
levees perform this service, while they furnish these 



240 OUR GREAT MEN. 

needed conveniences to commerce, should it be objected 
that, at the same time, they protect the country behind 
them from overflow ? Suppose they do protect private 
property while performing a public service, should they 
not be commended all the more for that? Should not 
that circumstance really be an additional inducement or 
argument for their construction ? 

"Should not broad and liberal statesmanship, in con- 
sidering a question of this sort, rather approve of a sys- 
tem which, while subserving the public interests, at the 
same time aifords needed protection to the life and prop- 
erty of the individual? ^ Salus populi suprema lex.'' Sir, 
protection to private property, in some way, results from 
nearly every work of public import. If a street in a 
town or city be graded, paved, macadamized, the prop- 
erty belonging to individuals on that street experiences 
an enhancement of value as the result of the improve- 
ment. 

"Every railroad constructed through a country in- 
creases the value of the lands adjacent thereto. Every 
grand, imposing public building erected in this city 
(Washington), and every park laid out, beautified, 
adorned, adds something to the worth of neighboring 

private estates. 

****** 

"Mr. Speaker, when the great Father of Waters, 
unhindered by an adequate levee system, rises out of its 
banks and sweeps with resistless might over the valley, 
a more than crisis, a sad realization of the worst, is upon 
the people of that unhappy section; and this grievous 
affliction of one of the members of the body-politic, in 



NEWTON C. BLANCHAED. 241 

more or less degree, disastrously aifects the wliole. Sir, 
against the recurrence of the like calamity, national in 
its effect, we ask the aid of the National Grovernment. 
We ask it because we believe and hold that the powers 
delegated in general terms in the Constitution are broad 
and comprehensive enough to justify it; that the granting 
of national aid for such purpose is directly in the line of 
the effectuation of the legitimate objects of the charter. 

"'Constitutions of government,' says Story, Volume 
I, page 655, 'are not to be framed upon a calculation of 
existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with 
the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural 
and tried course of human affairs. There ought to be a 
capacity to provide for future contingencies as they may 
happen.' That this capacity exists in the Federal Consti- 
tution no one will deny. The trials it has undergone, the 
tests it has been put to and triumphantly emerged from, 
in the hundred years of its existence, abundantly attest 
it. Let this Congress, Mr. Speaker, give another evidence 
of this capacity by providing against the contingency of 
another overflow; let this provision be ample and unre- 
stricted. Let it meet the case. It will be instructive, 
Mr. Speaker, to glance at what has been done by other 
countries in the way of undertaking and prosecuting great 
works of public improvement. From it we may derive 
encouragement to expend a small part, at least, of our 
surplus revenues in protecting the property and lives of 
our brothers dwelling in the valley of the great river from 
its periodical floods. 

"The greater part of the Netherlands has been formed 
of deposits of rivers in the same manner as the Egyptian 



242 OUR GREAT MEN. 

delta is formed by the Nile, or the delta of the Mississippi 
by that great river. The principal rivers which have so 
formed it are the Rhine, including its different branches, 
the Mouse and its branches and confluents, and the 
Scheldt. 

"To establish a firm footing amid so many rivers, the 
inhabitants have kept them as far as possible within pre- 
scribed channels by embankments, and have formed 
innumerable canals to receive the superfluous waters and 
serve as means of internal communication. ' The system 
of drainage,' says a writer in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 
'of what would otherwise have been an immense mud 
bank, well deserves to be ranked among the wonders of 
the world. The land thus rescued from the rivers is 
nowhere much elevated above the sea, and in many 
places is even below the sea-level, so as to require still 
more wonderful defenses against the ocean. These de- 
fenses are in part supplied by the operation of nature, 
casting up sand hills along a great part of the coast ; but 
where these have not been formed their place is supplied 
by dikes of vast extent, built in the course of ages, partly 
of huge blocks of granite brought from Norway, and 
partly of bundles formed of young trees reared expressly 
for the purjDOse. These dikes stretch for hundreds of 
miles along the coast, and with those which line the 
rivers and canals, and with the requisite sluices, draw- 
bridges and hydraulic works of every kind, are estimated 
to have cost not less than £300,000,000.' (Equivalent to 
about 11,500,000,000.) ' They form, in so small a coun- 
try, a most astonishing monument of human industry. 
Yet they are not greater than the situation requires. 



NEWTON C. BLANCHARD 243 

They are barely sufficient to preserve the country from 
the dominion of the waters. The motto on the arms of 
one of the provinces, ^Luctor et Emergo,'' still describes 
the struggles of the invincible Hollanders requisite for 
maintaining the ground they stand upon.' The highways 
or roads often run for miles in a straight line along the 
summits of these dikes, and are thus at once dry and ele- 
vated, commanding extensive views. 

"Not only have the Hollanders done this, but they 
have also drained and reclaimed Lake Haarlem, contain- 
ing 42,000 acres. As early as A. D. 1643, a proposition 
to endike and drain the lake was made; and similar 
schemes, notably in 1742 and 1821, were brought forward 
from time to time. But it was not until 1836, when one 
furious hurricane, on the 9th of N'ovember, drove the 
waters as far as the gates of Amsterdam, and another on 
the 25th of December sent them in the opposite direction 
to submerge the streets of Leyden, that the mind of the 
nation was turned seriously to the matter. In August, 
1837, the king appointed a royal commission of inquiry; 
the scheme proposed by the commission received the sanc- 
tion of the second chamber in March, 1839, and in the 
following May the necessary law was passed and the work 
commenced. The lake covered an area of about seventy 
square miles, and had an average depth of more than 
thirteen feet. As it had no natural outfall it was calcu- 
lated that probably one thousand million tons of water 
would have to be raised by mechanical means. 

"Pumping commenced in 1848, and the lake was dry 
by the first of July, 1852. The cost of reclaiming this 
42,000 acres was £1,080,000, or about |5,400,000. The 



244 OUR GREAT MEX. 

government, however, sold lands to the amount of 
£780,000, so that the actual cost to the nation was only 
£300,000, or |1,500,000. 

"But it will be observed the reclamation of this land 
was not the sole j^urpose of the work. Indeed, the main 
incentive was the protection of the adjacent country from 
occasional or j^eriodical submergence by the lake. It 
was judged that the best way to do this was to drain the 
lake, and accordingly it was done. Thus two beneficial 
purposes were effected : The protection of the surrounding 
country, and the opening up to cultivation 42,000 acres 
of land. 

"Sir, a greater argument presents itself why this 
Government should undertake the construction of an 
adequate levee system on the Mississippi, for the beneficial 
ends to be attained thereby are threefold, namely: The 
improvement of the navigation of the river; the protec- 
tion of the cultivated lands in its valley, and the lives 
and property of the dwellers therein from destructive 
floods; and the opening up to cultivation millions of 
acres of the finest lands in the world." 

Mr. Blanchard then goes on to tell of other rivers 
that have been diked; the Rhine, Mouse, Scheldt, Po, 
Vistula and Nile, and at great expense. After telling 
what other countries have done in the way of jDrotection 
from floods, and the great expenditures in improving the 
public highways and furnishing means of transportation, 
in many instances in order to compete with America, he 
makes a summary of what the Federal Government has 
spent in acquisition of territory, land grants to corpora- 
tions, money spent on account of railroads, canals, wagon 



NEWTON C. BLANCHARD. 



245 



roads and j^ublic works, which, in round numbers, reaches 
the vast sum of $489,000,000, and that with no more 
authority from the Constitution than that required for 
appropriating a few millions for the protection of the 
Mississippi Valley. And he asks who can question the 
constitutionality of those acts. 




Hon. JOSEPH E. BROWN, 



OF GEORGIA. 




JOSEPH E. BROWIN', of Atlanta, one of the 
most prominent men of the South, was 
born in Pickens District, South Carolina, 
April 15th, 1821. When he was a mere 
lad his father moved from South Carolina to Union 
County, G-eorgia, the State he has served so well both in 
public and in j^rivate life. His father was a poor man, 
and young Joseph worked upon a farm till he was nine- 
teen years old. Then, with his father's consent, he left 
home, with limited means, to attend Calhoun Academy, 
in Anderson District, South Carolina. After leaving the 
academy he went to Canton, Georgia, and taught school ; 
and in August, 1845, he was admitted to the Bar. 

He then entered the Yale Law School, and after 
graduating there, in 1846, returned to Canton, Georgia, 
and commenced the practice of his jDrofession. 

In 1849 he was elected a member of the State Senate 
of Georgia, but would serve only the one term, prefer- 
ring to practice his profession. In 1852 he was a mem- 
ber of the Electoral College when Pierce and King were 
elected. In 1855 he was elected Judge of the Superior 
Courts of the Blue Ridge Circuit, and served in that 

(240) 







v^jDjSI^^' "^ 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 249 

capacity till the fall of 1857, when he was elected Gov- 
ernor of Georgia by the Democratic party. He was 
re-elected in 1859, in 1861, and again in 1863. 

He was an ardent Secessionist, and an energetic war 
Governor after the State had seceded. He did all in his 
power to aid the Confederate Government, but after 
their cause was lost he believed in accepting the inevita- 
ble. He accepted the situation because he saw no other 
way out of the difficulty, and became for a time very 
unpopular with the people of Georgia because he did 
not advance some strong protest against the reconstruc- 
tion measures of Congress. The Democratic party 
refused to agree to those terms, and nominated Seymour 
and Blair on a platform which declared the " Recon- 
struction" acts of Congress to be " unconstituional, null 
and void." Regarding such a course as the worst possi- 
ble course for the South, Governor Brown went as a 
Republican Delegate to the Chicago Convention. As a 
Reconstructionist he voted for General Grant, who 
favored those measures. 

During 1868 he received the Republican nomination 
for United States Senator. He was defeated in the elec- 
tion, and it is the only defeat of his life. He has always 
received the hearty support of the people of Georgia 
whenever he has appeared before them for an office of 
any kind, with this one exception. After this defeat for 
Senator he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Georgia for a term of twelve years, by Governor 
Bullock, and he held the position till 1870, when he 
resigned to accept the Presidency of the Western and 
Atlantic Railroad Company. He has held the position 



250 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ever since, and has devoted his time mainly to his busi- 
ness interests. 

In 1872, when the Democratic party nominated Horace 
Greeley upon the j)latform of accej^tance of reconstruction 
measures, he again acted with it, and has worked with 
his old party ever since. 

In 1880, when General Gordon resigned his position 
in the United States Senate, Governor Colquitt appointed 
Governor Brown to till the vacancy, which, after much 
urging, he accepted, and has held his seat in the Senate 
since that time. He is still largely interested in busi- 
ness matters, and looks well to the interests of Georgia. 

The following is a summary of a speech by Mr. 
Brown on the "Silver Question: " 

" Mr. President, the silver question is in no sense a 
party question. Many of the leading Democrats, both 
in and out of Congress, differ with the President, Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, and other Democratic leaders upon 
this question. Many of the most distinguished and intel- 
ligent leaders of the Republican party agree with the 
President and Secretary of the Treasury. But a large 
number of Ile2:)ublican leaders, equally as distinguished, 
differ with their party friends on this question, and 
believe that the coinage of silver should be continued, at 
least to the extent now prescribed by law, while some 
think the annual coinage should be increased to a higher 
figure. No Senator or RejDresentative, no matter which 
side he takes of this important question, can be charged 
with a want of fealty to his party on account of his posi- 
tion. I have no hesitation in expressing my deliberate 
and fixed opinion that it would be unwise and unjust to 



JOSEPH E. BROWX. 251 

the people of this country to discontinue the coinage of 
silver at present, or to lessen the amount annually coined 
under the present law. 

"An intelligent writer has lately made the statement 
that the national public debts of the civilized world, 
embracing mainly the public debts of Europe and 
America, amount in round numbers to $25,000,000,000. 
Upon this enormous sum the people are paying more 
than an average of four per cent., or $1,000,000,000 per 
annum, of interest. The same writer is of opinion that 
all the state and county and corporation debts of the 
world aggregate about $50,000,000,000, making the 
indebtedness of the world, national, state and corpo- 
rate, amount to $75,000,000,000, which, at four per cent., 
would be $3,000,000,000 a year of interest, with which 
the labor of the people is now taxed, an annual interest 
of twice the amount of the whole public debt of the 
United States. 

"The holders of this immense amount of bonds and 
other obligations form a class, and the laboring people 
of the world, who are wealth-producing and who labor to 
jDay this enormous amount annually, form another class. 
It is the interest of the creditor class, holding this 
immense amount of bonds and liens upon the labor of 
the people, to have both the princij)al and interest paid 
in the most valuable currency which it is in their power 
to receive from the debtor class. 

"These bonds and other obligations, so far as this 
country is concerned, were contracted to be paid in a tixed 
currency specified and defined in the contract. Most of 
the debt was contracted during the war, and it was agreed 



252 OUR GREAT MEN. 

between the debtor and the creditor, as to the larger part 
of it, that the debt should be paid in the lawful money of 
the United States, or greenbacks, which were then the 
law^ful money and currency of the country, and, in fact, 
almost our only currency; and during a not inconsider- 
able proportion of the time one dollar in silver was worth 
two dollars and a half in greenbacks. 

"A farmer furnishing bacon to the Army worth $100 
in silver received $250 in greenbacks, or a bond of the 
Government for $250. In other words, he received in a 
bond of the United States two and a half times as much 
as his bacon would have brought in silver. The same 
was true of the manufacturer, the merchant, and all other 
classes who furnished suj^plies to the Army of the United 
States. Thus the matter stood at the end of the war. 
The bondholders, during all the period while greenbacks 
were so heavily depreciated, got two or two and a half 
times as much in bonds for the articles delivered by them 
to the Government as they would have brought in gold 
or silver. In that state of the case, what peculiar obliga- 
tion rested upon the Government of the United States to 
pay these bonds in a better currency than was provided 
for any other creditor of the United States? 

"What peculiar claim did the bondholder, who ob- 
tained his bonds during this state of inflation and got 
this large increase upon the gold or silver value of his 
commodities, have to be paid in better currency than the 
balance of mankind who might be creditors of the United 
States ? Why should he receive in payment a better cur- 
rency than the Army or the Navy, or the clerks in the 
Departments, or the day laborer who toils upon the pub- 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 253 

lie works of the United States? I can see no reason 
whatever why the discrimination should have been made 
in his favor. The soldiers who imperiled their lives in 
the storm of battle received their wages in greenbacks. 
Their widows and minor children, where the husbands 
and fathers were slain in battle, received their pensions 
in greenbacks, and I believe they still do. All the 
ofiicers and employes of the Government received their 
compensation in greenbacks, and I believe they still do. 
The men who toiled upon the new vessels of the Navy, 
as well as the men who labored during the extremes of 
heat and cold in the improvement of your rivers and har- 
bors, received their pay in greenbacks, and they still do. 
What greater equity existed in favor of the bondholder 
than existed in favor of either of the classes to which I 
have referred? If there were any I am not aware of it. 
"But the association of bondholders, on account of the 
large increase that had been paid them above the gold 
and silver standard, had an enormous amount of our 
securities in their hands. The debt amounted to $2,756,- 
000,000 at the end of the war ; and while a portion of this 
debt was owned by every class in the community, the 
great bulk of it belonged to a comparatively small class 
of capitalists, who were able, when a United States bond 
for |250 could be obtained for commodities worth $100 in 
silver, to advance the amount and take the bond. This 
creditor class, holding this large amount of bonds of the 
United States acquired under circumstances most favor- 
able to their own interests, naturally desired to increase 
the value of the obligations held by them, and they went 
to work, systematically, I have no doubt, and used the 



254 OUR GREAT MEN. 

columns of influential newspapers and the brains of influ- 
ential men, and they finally had the pleasure to see the 
passage of the act of 1869, declaring that the principal 
of the bonds, as well as the interest, should be paid in 
coin. There was an exception in this act, applicable to a 
certain class of bonds, but the exception was so qualified 
as to destroy its effect and leave the rule substantially as 
above stated. 

"There was no new consideration for this important 
alteration in the contract so far as the then bondholders 
were concerned. Many of them got their bonds when the 
legal money of the United States (greenbacks) was so de- 
preciated that the bonds only cost them about forty cents 
on the dollar in gold or silver, and the contract between 
them and the people was that the bonds might be paid in 
the same currency they gave for them, to wit, in green- 
backs, or in lawful money, as it was called. Instead of 
carrying out this contract Congress gratified them by the 
passage of the act above mentioned, by which it declared 
that they should receive payment in coin ; that is, in gold 
or silver. But they were not content with this, and they 
soon had the pleasure to see the passage of another act, 
which is dated 14th of July, 1870, authorizing the refund- 
ing of the bonds, and prescribing that the new bonds 
should be paid in coin of the standard value prescribed by 
law at the date of the passage of this act. 

"The gold dollar then consisted of 25.8 grains of 
standard gold, and the silver dollar of 412.5 grains of 
standard silver. 

"But let it be borne in mind that while they were 
procuring this legislation greatly enhancing the value of 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 255 

their securities, they did agree to receive j)ayment in the 
coin of the United States of the standard of that date. 
In other words, they agreed to receive payment in silver 
dollars or gold dollars of the standard weight which 
the law then authorized, and of the standard weight 
which it now authorizes, as neither the weight of the 
silver nor the gold dollar has been changed by law since 
that time. 

"I^ow we would naturally enough conclude that this 
system of changing the contract from time to time, at 
each change making it more valuable to the creditor 
party, had been carried far enough, and that the people 
would not be asked to do more than pay an original 
greenback debt worth forty cents in the dollar in the 
gold and silver coin of the standard of 1870, or the 
gold and silver coin of the present date. But not con- 
tent with the advantages they had obtained over the 
people, the next step was that of demonetizing silver. 
What would have been the etfect if silver could have 
been permanently demonetized, and the coinage of the 
standard silver dollar discontinued, and the guarantee 
given that nothing but gold should be received in pay- 
ment of the public debt? This would still further have 
enhanced the value of their bonds, as it would largely 
have diminished the quantity of the coin with which, 
under the contract, they were to be paid by striking 
down silver coin, which would have greatly increased the 
value of the gold coin, which would have then been the 
only coin we could have had to give them in payment. 
This would have added probably from twenty-five to fifty 
per cent, to the value of their bonds, and it would have 

16 



256 OUR GREAT MEN. 

enhanced the burdens of the people, out of whose labor 
they must be paid a like amount. 

" But after the act demonetizing silver had gone into 
effect, the people, who felt that they had already been 
greatly wronged, determined to take the matter into 
their own hands, and they sent representatives to Con- 
gress to repeal the act demonetizing silver, and provide 
for a reasonable amount of annual coinage, and a very 
moderate amount under the circumstances. As the 
l^eople, since that period, at each biennial election, have 
selected members of Congress who could not be charmed 
by the seductive influence of this great creditor class, it 
became necessary in their estimation, notwithstanding 
their frequent failures, for the creditor class to continue 
their efforts to procure legislation to discontinue the 
coinage of silver. But notwithstanding this failure they 
have still been so fortunate, while others have been com- 
pelled to take silver or greenbacks, as to continue to 
receive gold alone in payment of both the principal and 
interest which have fallen due ; and up to this date, if I 
am correctly informed, there has not in any instance 
been a silver dollar paid to a Federal bondholder for 
years past, if, indeed, there has been any instance since 
the passage of the act in 1870. What has been the 
result ? 

"A six per cent. United States bond during the war 
was worth say forty cents on the dollar in gold or silver. 
Ul^on the j^assage of the act of 1869 they rose nearly to 
par. Upon the passage of the act of 1870 a four per 
cent, went to a par, and since that, as the interest and 
principal falling due from year to year have been paid in 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 257 

gold only, while all other creditors of the United Stat(\^ 
are required to take silver or greenbacks, the bonds have- 
steadily advanced until they are now worth one hundred 
and twenty to one hundred and twenty-four in the 
market, and still the cry is that the patriotic bondhold- 
ers must be dealt liberally with, and that the taxes of the 
people must be increased to give them a better currency 
than other people receive, so as to keep up the credit of 
the United States. 

"I think it proper that we keep the credit up to a 
point that is reasonable. When a three per cent, bond 
is at par I do not care to tax the people to put the credit 
any higher. If, with the suplus in the Treasury from 
year to year, we have to purchase the four per cents, to 
keep up the sinking fund, I do not desire that the people 
who sold them for forty to fifty cents on the dollar pay 
one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty for 
them. 

"There is neither reason nor justice in the demand 
that we depreciate ]3art of the currency of the United 
States, namely, greenbacks and silver, in order to make 
gold more valuable, and pay the bondholders a more 
exorbitant price. 

"I think that every officer of the Treasury who has 
to pay out money on the public debt or public expendi- 
tures of every character should treat all creditors alike, 
and should pay to the bondholder for his interest or his 
maturing bond either gold or silver, as the one or the 
other may be most convenient for the Treasurer at the 
time; and bear in mind, Mr. President, if you pay out 
twenty, or thirty, or forty millions of dollars a year in 



258 OUR GREAT MEX. 

silver to the public creditors, who are a very influential 
and powerful class, you make it their interest to aid in 
keeping up the price of silver, while if you pay them in 
gold alone they will be always attempting to depreciate 
silver to make the gold received by them more valuable 
as the representative of more property. I say, treat 
every creditor alike. If you pay the bondholder in gold 
alone, pay gold to the officer, pay gold to the laborer ; 
and if there is really any diiference in the purchasing 
power of the gold and silver dollar, there is greater 
reason why the bondholder, in view of the original cost 
of the bond, should take the silver dollar than there is 
why the laborer should take it and leave the gold dollar 
to the bondholder. 

"There is a great clamor on the part of the bond- 
holders for a suspension of the coinage of silver, and 
much apprehension on account of the large amount of 
silver dollars lying in the Treasury vaults. Now, I say 
it is the duty of the Secretary of- the Treasury to dispose 
of those silver dollars by j^aying them out to the public 
creditors whenever anything is due, and the bondholder 
should take his full share of them. If this does not dis- 
pose of them, then the Secretary of the Treasury should 
call in enough bonds upon which the people are now -paj- 
ing interest to absorb the silver dollars that are lying in 
the Treasury, and thus relieve the people of a large 
amount of interest which they are paying annually upon 
the 2:)ortion of the debt that is subject to call and is not 
called in, and pay off the debt to all classes of creditors 
as far as we have silver coin not otherwise appropriated. 
If it is said this is not honest, as it is not an honest 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 259 

dollar, I reply that it is always honest to pay a debt in 
the very currency which the creditor by the contract has 
agreed to take. The contract in this case, as amended 
at the instance of the creditors, is that every one of these 
bonds may be paid in silver dollars or gold dollars, at 
the convenience of the Treasury, and no American need 
blush when the Government carries out in honest, strict, 
good faith its contracts with its creditors and pays them 
in the very currency which the creditors have contracted 
to take. 

"From year to year, almost without exception, we 
have imported more gold than we have exported, and 
we have exported more silver than we have imported, 
and all the reasonable probabilities are that we shall 
continue to do so. And bear in mind that at the end of 
seven years we have twice as much gold as silver coin 
in our country. We have a country of unparalleled 
capacity, of immense proportions, with more virgin soil 
and more productive capability than any other country 
on the face of the globe. We have a population of 
nearly sixty millions of people, with more inventive 
genius, more energetic industry and enterprise, than the 
people of any other nation. We produce by our facto- 
ries a very large proj)ortion of the manufactured articles 
necessary for our use. These advantages enable us to 
export more and import less necessaries and conven- 
iences of life than any other people. 

"The result is a constant balance of trade in our 
favor, with a strong probability, with our increasing 
capacity for production, and our increasing population. 



2G0 OUR GREAT MEN. 

and our constantly increasing independence of other 
nations, that this balance of trade in our favor will con- 
tinue to grow instead of being diminished. Already 
within the last six or seven years it has amounted to 
over $500,000,000, which other nations have been obliged 
to pay to the United States as balance due on settle- 
ments ; and as gold is the medium of exchange which is 
adopted in settlements between us and European nations, 
this pours a steady stream of gold into the United States, 
and while the production of silver from our mines the 
last year has been greater than the production of gold, 
still the quantity of gold coin in the United States 
almost doubles the quantity of silver coin, according to 
the extract Avhich I have already read from the report 
of the Secretary of the Treasury. This shows that our 
country is being enriched by the importation of gold, 
and that we do not find it necessary to export gold to 
settle the balance of trade against us, as it does not 
exist to any extent with European nations. Why, then, 
should we fear a drain of gold and an influx of silver? 
All the probabilities are that there will be an increased 

influx of gold and export of silver. 

« « « « * « 

"The United States is probably the heaviest pro- 
ducer of silver in the world. The United States and 
Mexico together j^roduce about one-half of all the silver 
mined in the world. Why, then, should either of these 
nations array itself on the side of the powers that seek 
to demonetize silver and destroy its value ? 

"From the earliest ages of civilization silver and gold 
have been the metals used for the coinage of the money 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 261 

of the world. In all ages they have been mentioned 
alike as money, and the quantity of each in circula- 
tion has been nearly equaled. The Secretary of the 
Treasury informs us in his report that the 'statisti- 
cians all agree that silver is fifty-four per cent, of the 
monetary metals of mankind, while gold is forty-six.' 
While we have of gold about sixty-five per cent., and of 
silver about thirty-five, then if we were to strike down 
silver as money, and all other nations were to follow our 
example, we would destroy more than one-half of all the 
money in the world, and more than one-third of our own 
metallic money, and would reduce property to one-third 
its j^resent nominal value, and it would cost the debtor 
class twice as much property to pay their debts as it now 
costs them when both metals are coined and used as 
money. 

" Now, while it is admitted that fifty-four per cent, of 
the metallic money of the world is silver, it is sought to 
stop the coinage of that metal because it is said its mar- 
ket value is not at present equal to the value of our gold 
unit; in other words, that 412.5 grains of standard silver 
are not worth in the market a standard gold dollar, which 
is the unit of the United States. Why is it that silver, 
which, down to the period of the commencement of the 
war, at sixteen for one, was worth a premium as compared 
with the gold coin, has since fallen until the metal is not 
worth more than eighty cents on the dollar? This has 
resulted not from a superabundance of silver, but from 
the unfriendly legislation of Great Britain, G-ermany and 
the United States. If the principal commercial nations 
of the world will discontinue the coinage of gold as money 



262 OUR GREAT MEN. 

it will decrease in value faster than silver lias done, as it 
is a metal not so well suited for use in the mechanic arts, 
and for various domestic purposes, as silver. The superi- 
ority in value that it now has over silver is entirely arti- 
ficial. It is 2:>roduced by unfriendly legislation against 
silver and partial legislation in favor of gold. Let the 
case be reversed, and permit the unlimited coinage of sil- 
ver, and stop the coinage of gold into legal-tender money, 
as they have done in India, and silver will very soon 
reassert itself, and 412.5 grains of standard silver will 
again become worth more money in the market than 25.8 
grains of gold. 



* 



"But Great Britain is not very consistent in her 
course in demonetizing silver and making gold the stand- 
ard. While she adopts that j)olicy in her home govern- 
ment, she adojits exactly the reverse of it in her immense 
possessions in India. There gold is demonetized and sil- 
ver is the legal tender. By this policy Great Britain is 
enabled to draw the gold into the exchanges of the home 
government, and to put off any quantity of surplus silver 
that she may have on her possessions in India. And 
having there two hundred millions of subjects, she has 
an immense vent for all the silver that she may be 
able to control. This is a shrewd piece of financier- 
ing. At one end of the line gold is the legal money, at 
the other end silver alone is the legal money; at 
one end gold is demonetized, at the other end silver is 
demonetized. While we have not a country with the 
immense population of India to absorb and use our silver, 
we have a country of much greater extent, and with a 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 263 

population more productive than the whole of India to 
use the silver which is annually taken from our mines, 
even if a much larger proportion of it were converted 
into coin. 

"As I have already stated, we are in no danger of 
having our gold drained out of this country and silver 
imported to take its place as long as the balance of trade 
remains in our favor as between us and the principal 
European nations. As two of the chief powers of Europe 
coin gold as their legal tender, and as commercial settle- 
ments are made in gold, we get the benefit of it, and our 
stock of gold is constantly increased by a drain from 
those nations into this country to settle balances in our 
favor. 

"But there is another view of this subject in favor of 
silver to which I wish to refer in this connection. It is 
a well-known fact that silver is the principal money or 
medium of exchange used in China, British India, Japan, 
and in fact all the other Eastern nations. More than two- 
thirds of the people of the globe prefer it to gold, and use 
it chiefly as their money. South America is a large pro- 
ducer of both gold and silver; so is Mexico. But there 
the silver dollar is still recognized and used as a circu- 
lating medium, as legal money, and there is no discrimi- 
nation against it. 

"As we are fast becoming a vast manufacturing- 
power, as well as a great agricultural power, with a large 
surplus of the joroducts of our different manufacturing- 
establishments for exportation, we look chiefly to China 
and other Eastern nations, and to South America, as the 
markets where we can most successfully compete with 



264 OUR GREAT MEN. 

England and France and other commercial powers, but 
especially with the former. There is a very long balance 
of trade against us in Brazil and the West Indies, prin- 
cipally for sugar and coffee. Both these countries use 
silver as legal money. In paying that large balance of 
trade in specie, why should we send our gold out of the 
country if we prefer to keep it when they would as 
readily accept silver? Why not send them silver in 
payment of these balances ? 

" The same remark applies to the Hawaiian Islands, 
where our purchases of sugar turn the balance of trade 
against us. Why not maintain our silver standard and 
our silver coins and pay these balances in silver or gold, 
as it suits our convenience, and why not send our silver 
to China and other Eastern nations to exchange for their 
commodities, as there, too, the balance of trade is against 
us? As the nations which owe us large balances must 
settle with us in gold, and the nations to whom we owe 
balances are willing to take silver, and as that state of 
things is likely to continue for many years to come, the 
successive reports of the Treasury Dej^artment which 
come to Congress annually, predicting great financial 
trouble by the drainage of our gold out of the country 
and the filling of its place with silver, no longer produce 
uneasiness, as they are found to have no practical signifi- 
cance. 

* * * * * ^ 

"It must be true either that the silver dollar is not 
the inferior currency which it is represented to be or 
that the rule above mentioned is not a sound rule, or 
else we must conclude that the effort at the Treasury 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 265 

heretofore has been to keep it out of circulation rather 
than to put it in. To the credit of the present Secretary 
of the Treasury I beg to remark that, as I understand 
it, he has greatly increased the circulation of silver since 
he has been in office, and I entertain so much confidence 
in his ability, his fidelity to principle and his patriotism 
that I have no doubt he will soon be able to put all the 
surplus he has on hand into circulation without driving 
out gold. Whether it be a less valuable or more valua- 
ble currency, the two can circulate together in large 
quantities without practical embarrassment, as the results 
have already shown. Intrinsically there is no substan- 
tial difference between the value of 25.8 grains of stand- 
ard gold and 412.5 grains of standard silver. The appa- 
rent difference grows out of unfriendly legislation against 
silver, and unjust and partial legislation in favor of gold. 
Hence the different Secretaries of the Treasury have 
been unable, as they report, to put the ' Gresham law ' 
in force, and have silver, which they say is bad money, 
go into circulation and drive out gold, which they claim 
is good money. The failure grows out of the fact that 
both are good money, and they circulate together, as they 
have always done, and neither can drive out the other. 

" It has been said repeatedly by high officials that the 
coinage of the silver dollar does great injustice to the 
laboring class of this country ; that the silver dollar is 
not an honest dollar, and that the laboring class should 
be paid in gold for their labor. Why, then, is it not 
done? We probably have gold enough in the Treasury 
to pay all who labor for the United States, and it is a 
little remarkable that this argument should be advanced 



266 OUR GREAT MEN. 

by those who have power to pay, and refuse to pay, a 
dollar in gold to anyone laboring for the United States. 
Those who labor for this Government receive pay in 
silver or greenbacks. Not one of them can get an hon- 
est claim of a hundred dollars for which he has labored 
paid in gold at the Treasury. The gold is kept for the 
bankers and the bondholders; and notw^ithstanding they 
have agreed, as part of their solemn contract, to take 
payment both of principal and interest of their bonds in 
gold or silver coin of the j^i'esent standard value, not a 
dollar of silver is paid to them, but it is kept for the 
laboring class, and the gold is securely hoarded and; 
sacredly kept until it can be paid out to the bond- 
holders. 

"But the laboring class are, in fact, as well paid for 
their labor as they have been at any previous period in 
the history of the country, and a legal-tender silver 
dollar will buy more of the necessaries of life for the 
laborer than it would have done at almost any other 
time. The honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck], 
in his very able speech on this subject, a few days since, 
demonstrated that point very clearly. Before the war 
the laboring man who received a dollar a day for his 
labor, and a large proportion of them got less, could buy 
eight yards of calico for a dollar ; now the laborer can 
take the dollar which he receives for his day's labor ^ 
and buy twenty yards of calico. Then he could buy 
bacon at fourteen cents a pound ; now he can buy it at 
eight. And so with all the necessaries of life. 

"There is nothing, therefore, in the position that the 
laboring class can be damaged by the coinage of the silver | 



JOSEPH E. BROWN. 267 

dollar. The laborers are generally glad to get silver. It 
is popular with the laboring class everywhere, and they 
would be glad to have a great deal more of it in circula- 
tion. The people can not be frightened by the statement 
that the laborers will suifer when they are paid in legal- 
tender silver dollars. 

"When you strike down silver you will depreciate 
property nearly one-half, and the price of labor will go 
down in the same proportion, and he who now gets a 
legal-tender silver dollar for his day's labor will then get 
but fifty cents in gold. How will the laborer be benefited 
by the change? But while the laborers will be content 
to receive silver dollars, they will insist that the bond- 
holders who have contracted for silver dollars shall be 
required to take their proportion in that currency. This 
is a case where equality is equity, and all that the labor- 
ers desire is that bondholders and laborers be placed 
upon the same equal platform; that the same equity be 
done to each class. With this the laborers will be con- 
tent. To this the bondholders should be compelled by 
law to submit. 

"If the national banks, by a system of hoarding gold 
or otherwise, attempt to practically demonetize silver 
and to force gold to a premium by refusing to take legal- 
tender silver dollars, or silver certificates, in settlement 
of balances or in any settlements, and if the ofiicers who 
represent the people in the different Departments of Gov- 
ernment at Washington will not take the matter in hand 
and enact and enforce the necessary laws, then the people 
at the recurring elections should take the matter in their 
own hands and fill all the Departments with men who 



268 OUR GREAT MEN. 

will apply the proper corrective by a forfeiture of the 
charters of such banks as are abusing their privileges, or 
by the enactment and faithful execution of such other 
constitutional and just laws as the exigencies of the case 
and the interest of the people may require." 



Hon. WILLIAM S. HOLMAN, 

OF INDIANA. 



J 




jlLLIAM S. HOLMAN, Representative to 
the Congress of the United States from 
the Fourth District of Indiana, was born 
at a pioneer homestead called Veraestau, in 
Dearborn County, Indiana, the 6th of September, 1822. 
He received a good common-school education, and sup- 
j)lemented that with two years at Franklin College, Indi- 
ana. He then commenced the study of law, and was 
admitted to the Bar. 

He was made Probate Judge at the remarkably early 
age of twenty-one. He served as Judge for three years. 
From 1847 to 1849 he was Prosecuting Attorney for the I 
county. In 1850 he was a member of the Constitutional 
Convention of Indiana, and in 1851 was elected a mem- 
ber of the Indiana Legislature. He was a Judge of the 
Court of Common Pleas from 1852 to 1856. 

He has been a member of the Thirty-sixth, Thirty- 



WILLIAM S. HOLMAN. 269 

seventh, Thirty-eighth, Fortieth, Forty-first, Forty-sec- 
ond, Forty-third, Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth Con- 
gresses. 

Mr. Holman has had a long term of public service, 
and has always been an honor to his State and the Dem- 
ocratic party, of which he is a staunch member. He is 
a great economist, and has advocated that doctrine for 
years. 

We quote from a speech of Mr. Holman on the 
post-office appropriation bill appropriating $800,000 sub- 
sidies for mail : 

"But, Mr. Chairman, permit me to say that gentle- 
men deal with this subject and with the American people 
unfairly when they talk about this being a question of 
commerce. Our commerce is not declining; our com- 
merce grows steadily with the advance of years. Our 
shipping interests, our carrying trade only, have declined, 
and they have declined for manifest reasons, in addition 
to the burden imposed by our excessive taxation. Of 
those reasons I know of none so obvious as the fact that 
the American capitalist has been able to invest his money 
in more remunerative enterprises. When he enters into 
the carrying trade of the world (the most cosmopolitan 
of all employments), he comes directly in competition 
with the people of all other nations, and must adopt their 
frugal methods, and must be satisfied with their small 
profits, or must go to the wall. If it is to his advantage 
to put his vessels under the flag of foreign nations, as it 
frequently is in the interest of economy, he does not hesi- 
tate to do it. But generally our capitalists prefer more 
lucrative investments at home. * 



270 OUR GREAT MEN. 

"Let gentlemen make their appeals to the American 1 
flag as much as they may, the fact remains that sixteen 
years ago when this inquiry was made by the committee 
I have named, and up to the present time, a very consid- 
erable portion of our capital has been invested wherever 
it could be advantageously done, in foreign shipping doing 
business under the flag of other nations. At the time of 
this inquiry two iron ships were being built on the Clyde 
by American capitalists with the avowed purpose of put- 
ting them under the British flag and holding them under 
bottomry bonds. So, sir, the question upon the part of 
the citizen investing his caj^ital is not one of the national 
credit or the flag. It is not with him a question of 
national pride in the flag of his country, but a cold, delib- 
erate calculation of moneyed profit in the carrying trade 
of the world, and from that standpoint alone can this 
subject be fairly jDresented by gentlemen who ask for 
this subsidy in this carrying trade, which alike con- 
cerns all nations. Low taxes will generally secure the 
flag. Citizens do not hesitate to engage in the carrying 
trade of the nations sailing their shij^s under the flags 
of the nations where the greatest exemption from taxa- 
tion exists. 

****** 

"But, Mr. Chairman, I sought the floor not for the 
purpose of discussing, except in a ^preliminary way, the 
question whether this was a subsidy or not, or to what | 
extent subsidy can revive our sliip2:>ing interest, but for 
the purpose of presenting another view which I think 
underlies this whole subject. I believe, sir, that this 
measure involves a i:)olicy of government which ought to 



WILLI.UI S, HOLMAN. 271 

arrest in a very marked degree the attention not only of 
this House but of the American people. The sm;ill sum 
of money involved here is of but little moment. It 
would not be felt by our Treasury ; it would not be felt 
by our tax-paying people. But, sir, this is one class of 
measures w^hich, up to this time, have produced, as I 
think, only injury and disaster to the country. 

****** 

" I think it is due to the people of this country, it is 
due to this House, that the fact should be stated that 
one of the great corporations appealing to you for this 
increased compensation for services to be rendered, here 
in the lobbies of your Capitol, came by its accredited 
agents with money in their hands to corrupt the legisla- 
tion of Congress, and by corrupt and dishonest means 
obtain money from your Treasury. 

"Gentlemen, here lies the great peril. Bad enough 
that the policy of our period should be to disturb the 
natural equality in the material condition of our people 
by operation of law, building up great estates for the few 
and producing corresponding poverty in the many, be- 
cause, independent of its injustice, it weakens the founda- 
tion of our Government; but how much less is that evil 
than that in our great Republic, in the opening of this 
our second century, a policy should be entered upon the 
natural fruits of which are to invite assaults upon Con- 
gress and the integrity of the agents of your Govern- 
ment? Can any man understand the extent to which the 
great subsidies already granted have affected your public 
men? How many public men have been brought into 
fearful and perilous temptations by motives unfriendly to 

17 



272 



OUR GREAT MEN, 



the Government that employs them! That last experi- 
ence in subsidy legislation is one I think that ought not 
to be forgotten. It is a humiliating lesson, and ought not 
to be repeated, at least in our generation." 



-»H^>^H«- 



7T^^ 



Hon. WILLIAM p. C. BRECKINRIDGE, 



OF KENTUCKY. 




ILLIAM p. C. BRECKINRIDGE, of Lex- 
ington, was born the 28th of August, 1837. 
He is an alumnus of Centre College, in 
Danville, Kentucky, graduating there when 
only eighteen years of age. He is also a graduate of the 
Law Department of the University of Louisville, where 
he took his diploma at the early age of twenty. He was 
elected to the Eorty-ninth Congress as a Democrat. 

Mr. Breckinridge is a successful attorney and an able 
orator, as all Avho read the following extracts from his 
speech on the j^ension bill will admit. Mr. Breckinridge 
said : 

" I plead to-day the cause of the humble home, whose 
father, buried in an adjoining grave, did not go to the 
war, but, with equal patriotism, did his part in the great 
battle of life. It is not only the soldier element that we 
are to legislate for, but it is every element of the coun- 
try in every part of the country. These are the condi- 



WILLIAM P. C. BEECKINKIDGE. 273 

tions that stared in the face every man who had to pass 
an intelligent consideration upon this subject." 

" It will also be borne in mind that the object of the 
pension law is not to support, but is to assist in support- 
ing, its beneficiaries. It is impossible so to frame such 
a law as to help only those who absolutely need help. 
Such laws must be, in their nature and in their pro- 
vision, general; applicable to classes as classes, and not 
to each individual in the peculiar circumstances of his 
particular case. The country does not undertake to fur- 
nish full support for all the persons on its pension-roll, 
nor would it be able so to do. So the rates must be 
adjusted to aid in the support of those who are its 
objects. 

"Mr. Chairman, the addition to the annual expendi- 
tures by the passage of this widows' bill is estimated to 
be $6,106,922, which, capitalized at four per cent., is a 
real addition to our public debt of $152,673,050. If our 
annual appropriations for pensions be no greater than 
the amount covered by the bill now under discussion 
(175,754,200), it capitalized at four per cent., is an addi- 
tion to our fixed indebtedness of |1,893,855,000. In 
view of these figures and of the present condition of the 
country, I for one am not willing to go any farther in 
this road, which leads, first, to the repeal of the limitation 
on the arrears of pensions; and, second, to the grant of 
pensions to everyone whose name was borne, on the rolls 
of the Army during the war. No one can estimate what 
cost awaits us if we pursue this farther. 

"It is the misfortune of this weak human nature of 
ours that the noblest emotions may cause lower and 



271 OUR GREAT MEN. 

meaner motives ; gratitude and justice to the soldier 
may give place to the attempt to gain or retain power 
by means of extravagant pensions. I impugn no man's 
motives ; I criticize the vote of no Representative ; but 
history reveals the dangers which lie in wait. The 
expenditure is startling, and destructive of every present 
hope of development, retrenchment and revision. But 
this is not its worst effect. It emasculates the courage 
of our public men; it tempts to low views concerning 
public moneys, and it fosters a spirit of dependence on 
Government bounty. It may be years before — God 
grant it may be never — that stalwart men will fill the 
air with shouts of ^^anem ac hides ! ' ' bread and games ! ' 
But this has been and may be. Let us appeal to the 
loftier spirit of self-dependence, the sterner love of inde- 
pendence, 

" These soldiers are our brethren — bone of our bone, 
blood of our blood — and want us to be frank and just. 
To them I confidently appeal from the clamors made 
ostensibly in their name. With them I am persuaded 
there is no desire to see heavier burdens laid on other 
people; they are not clamorous to live on the sweat of 
their neighbors and friends, of men as brave and as poor 
as they. I receive with some incredulity statements as 
to the poverty and sad necessities of any considerable 
number of the beneficiaries of these pensions. That 
some of them are in distress is undoubtedly too true. 
This is true of persons of every vocation in life. The 
fight to keep the wolf from the door, the strife to make 
'tongue and buckle meet,' the ceaseless battle against 
sickness, misfortune, weakness, no doubt has gone against 



WILLIAM P. C. BRECKINRIDGE. 275 

some of the most worthy. This is the not uncommon 
lot of humanity. But that any considerable number of 
the Federal soldiers or their families are objects of 
charity or the inmates of poor-houses I can not believe. 
It is not so in my section ; I never knew a Federal 
soldier in a poor-house. As a rule they are well to do, 
fairly successful, and more than usually thrifty. The 
qualities which as a rule urged them to volunteer and to 
persevere — the energy, earnestness, courage, enterprise, 
which made the Federal Army what it was — characterize 
them in peace, and bring their usual reward. 

"Mr. Chairman, it can not be; it would be a slander 
on the army of conquest. I recall another disbanded 
army — the army of the conquered — whose soldiers have 
received no pensions. These had borne four years of 
march and battle, had stood in the opposing ranks 
exposed to the storm of shell and shot. They returned, 
not to prosperous communities rich and happy, not to 
homes of plenty, but to a land desolate, conquered, in 
ashes. Without pensions they have fought the fight 
of life. 

"Mr. Chairman, all these soldiers were of common 
blood ; to-day they are brothers ; and I will not believe, 
I can not believe, that those who were victorious in war 
have not been fairly successful in peace. 

" For the brave soldier I have naught but esteem. 
To him who, from conviction, offered his life on the 
wager of the battle, I uncover my head and oifer my 
hand. By a tie of common manhood and like service 
we are brothers. To-day between us there can be no 
other rivalry than for our country's good, for her glory. 



276 OUR GREAT MEN. 

He who gave his services to his country can now do her 
no greater benefit than to call a halt in this wild chase 
for pensions. The day of reckoning must come ; the day 
of payment will be the day of judgment. 

"The sober, solid, grave mass of the people, I confi- 
dently believe, a^ree with these views. For one, here 
I halt. 

"I do not mean to say, sir, that I am not willing to 
put individuals on those rolls who, for some technical or 
other reason, can not be placed upon the pension-rolls; 
nor that in certain specified cases, where the disability is 
of an exceedingly grave and painful character, I might 
not be willing to increase the rates received, or in some 
given case, for reasons peculiar to it, that I would not 
gladly vote vv^hatever might seem to be just; and I am 
willing, and more than willing, to give to the veterans 
wdio in the Mexican war won for us an empire so vast 
and so rich, and opened to us the gateway to other and 
not yet realized benefits, some testimonial, not only of 
gratitude but of the justice of the country whose area 
they so greatly increased, and whose pathway to a higher 
destiny they so gloriously widened. 

"And I entreat that from this time forward you 
marry indissolubly in the same bill increase of pensions 
to the mode of raising the necessary revenue ; no longer 
let the vast expenditures be hidden amid rhetorical gen- 
eralities about our great wealth and overflowing cofi'ers, 
but let us come down to the 23ractical calculations of the 
wise builder in the parable, and see where and deter- 
mine how the needed moneys are to be raised. If we 
will increase this debt to run for fifty years, let us dedi- 



WILLIAM P. C. BRECKINRIDGE. 277 

cate a tax to its payment — a tax to be as sacred as the 
debt. Then we will deal candidly with the country, with 
the tax-payers, with the pensions and with ourselves. It 
is either mere hypocrisy or folly to thus increase our 
expenditures, to make promises so solemn, and then 
neglect to provide specifically for their payment. 

*']N'ow, when the coasts of the Republic are defense- 
less, when a dependent race enfranchised by the march 
of events needs care and education; when the fortifica- 
tions have rotted on our coast, and our flag has nearly 
disappeared from the seas; when the monetary system 
calls for revision and the tariif system calls for modifica- 
tion and reduction, I for one must halt before I go further 
in increasing either the lists of pensioners or the amounts 
that are to be paid them. When, sir, we are called upon 
to vote additions to these startling amounts, the additions 
in part to be borne by my people, I will not allow any 
man on this floor to challenge my vote for any past con- 
duct of mine or anybody else. 

"It is no answer to my conscience or my heart when 
men say to me, ' You must vote so and so or you will be 
suspected.' I will vote as I believe the best interests of 
the people, for to-day and to-morrow, and for years to 
come, require at my hands. 

"There are other things I wished to say, but I have 
only a few moments remaining. May I be pardoned, in 
conclusion, for a personal allusion? I feel I can speak 
with absolute frankness. I have no concealments; I 
have nothing to hjde. 

"Mr. Chairman, I believe that I represent, in the vote 
that I have cast, and that I may hereafter cast, that noble 



278 OUR GREAT MEN. 

and beloved constituency which has intrusted me with its 
representation. In its boundaries there are no animosi- 
ties growing out of the war, nor has there been for years. 
May I be pardoned, merely to illustrate the condition of 
that district, a personal allusion ? Of the two grown men 
w^ho are dearest to me, one served four years in the Con- 
federate Army, one four years in the Federal Army; 
suckled at the same breast, instructed at the same knee, 
in early boyhood becoming motherless, between the three 
there is only confidence and affection. There was a fourth, 
for whom the mother gave her life, and who seemed to 
grow up with the sunny lovingness that made that mother 
dear to all with whom she came in contact. In the early 
flush of his young manhood he laid his life, a Federal 
soldier, upon the altar of his duty, and he lies at the feet 
of a venerable man whose earnest, intense and able devo- 
tion to the Union of the States is well known among the 
peoj^le from whom I come. 

" Standing by those graves and looking across the blue- 
grass sward can be seen in concentric circles the head- 
stones of the Federal dead ; and not far off, on the slope 
of a beautiful hillside, under the shade of forest trees, 
stands the St. Anthony's cross, draped with the furled 
banner on the broken flag-staff of a dead confederacy, 
guarding in its white purity the graves of those who gave 
their lives for that flag. Scattered all over that beautiful 
cemetery are fathers and sons and brothers who served in 
opposing armies ; and in the adjoining city, and through 
all the adjacent country, are those who loved those dead 
heroes, and now live in sweet accord, forgetful of all that 
was harsh and bitter, remembering with grateful piety 



WILLIAM P. C. BRECKINRIDGE. 279 

only that which was brave and kindly and heroic. 
Among those people it has been my happiness to dwell, 
my hope to die and there lie until the resurrection morn, 
so that when the sun of righteousness comes in the East, 
and I rise to meet its beams, the first sight upon which 
my risen eyes may fall shall be the faces of those who, 
however divided we may have been in our view^s of duty, 
were never divided in our love. 

"Mr. Chairman, with memories like these, with ties 
like these, conscious of the rectitude of the motives which 
control the vote that I give, I shall meet with contempt 
all effort to intimidate, all purpose to misconstrue, speak- 
ing, acting, voting as an American Representative on the 
floor of the American Congress, officially the full peer of 
any other Representative, come from where he may, what- 
ever he may have been. It is our country, and I shall 
keep in view, with ceaseless care, her honor, her prosper- 
ity, and her glory, awaiting with calm confidence the 
decision of the tribunals to which I am responsible, my 
own conscience and the generous people whose commis- 
sion I bear." 



Hon. JAMES Z. GEORGE, 



OF MISSISSIPPI. 




AMES Z. GEORGE, of Jackson, Missis- 
sippi, is a native of Georgia. He was born 
in Monroe County, Georgia, in 1826. His : 
father having died in his infancy, he removed 
with his mother, when eight years of age, to Noxubee | 
County, Mississippi, where he resided two years, and 
then removed to Carroll County, Mississipj^i, where he 
was educated in the common schools of the neighbor- 
hood. At the age of twenty he volunteered as a i)rivate 
in the First Regiment of the Mississippi Volunteers in 
the Mexican War, commanded by Colonel Jefferson 
Davis, and was at the battle of Monterey. On his return 
from the war Mr. George studied law, and was admitted 
to the Bar in Carroll County. 

In 1854 he was elected Reporter of the High Court 
of Errors and Appeals, and was re-elected in 1860; and 
prepared and i^ublished ten volumes of the Reports of 
the decisions of that court, and in subsequent years 
prepared and published a Digest of all the decisions of 
the Supreme Court and the High Court of Errors and 
ApjDcals of that State, from the admission of the State 
into the Union, to and including the year 1870. 

(280) 



JAMES Z. GEORGE. 281 

In 1861 he again abandoned his profession for the 
battle-field ; he was a member of the Convention in Mis- 
sissippi, in 1861, which passed the ordinance of secession, 
and he voted for and signed that instrument. He en- 
tered the Confederate service as Captain in the Twentieth 
Regiment of Mississippi Yolunteers, and was afterwards 
a Brigadier-General of State troops, and at the close of 
the war was Colonel of the Fifth Kegiment of Missis- 
sippi Cavalry in the Confederate Army. 

. At the close of the war Mr. George resumed the 
practice of his profession, and was Chairman of the Dem- 
ocratic State Executive Committee of Mississippi in 1875 
and 1876. In 1879 he was appointed one of the Judges 
of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, and was elected by 
his associate Justices to the position of Chief Justice. 
In February, 1881, he resigned his seat on the Supreme 
Bench of Mississippi to take his seat in the United 
States Senate in place of the Hon. B. K. Bruce, on the 
4th of March of that year. 

In January, 1886, he was re-elected for another term 
of six years, from March 4th, 1887. He has served on 
the Committees of Education and Labor, Agriculture, 
Privileges and Elections, Claims and Territories. 

We quote from a speech by Mr. George on the Edu- 
cation bill: 

"Mr. President, I am very much obliged to the Senator 
from Massachusetts for making this contribution to the 
discussion of this question. 

"I was going to say when interrupted, that the State 
of Mississippi and her Senators are not here as suppli- 
ants for the National bounty, that we have all along 



282 OUR GREAT MEX. 

regarded this measure and similar ones which have 
passed this body as generous offerings on the part of the 
Northern States to aid the Southern States in removino: 
that very great danger which exists there now, arising 
from the illiteracy of a portion of their people. 

" I find myself placed by this ofPer, the white people 
of Mississippi also find themselves placed in this con- 
dition: We have in that State a majority of about 
180,000 of colored people. Here is an offer made, as we 
understand it, by the generous people of the JN'orth to 
aid us in educating them. Are we to reject it? Con- 
fessedly we are unable to educate them as we ought to. 
Then the question j^i'esents itself to us, my colleague 
and myself, and others representing the State in a sim- 
ilar position, are we to reject this ofi'er? It is in that 
attitude alone that I will consider the question. 

"The views and the wishes of the people of Missis- 
sij)pi of all classes and of all colors have been very dis- 
tinctly made known on this subject. I know of a few, 
and few only, who reject this offer. I do not know of a 
single colored man in the State of Mississippi who does 
not ardently wish that this measure should pass. 

"When such a measure is proposed I am bound to 
consider what might be the peculiar views and wishes of 
the colored j)eople of the South upon the question. I 
represent on this floor, as I have stated, a majority of 
colored j^eoplc. It is as much my duty to represent 
their interests, to j^romotc their welfare, to advance them 
so far as constitutional jDower is vested in me to advance 
them, as it is to advance the interests and the welfare 
of the white j^cople. 



JAMES Z. GEORGE. 283 

"Now, sir, as I have just said, there is not, as I 
believe, a colored man in the State of Mississippi who is 
not ardently in favor of this bill ; and if I should under- 
take to present some of the arguments which a colored 
man in the State of Mississippi would present in favor 
of the passage of this bill, I would suppose that he 
would say something like this: That when the war 
ended he found himself enfranchised, made a citizen of 
the United States, clothed with the rights, responsibili- 
ties and duties of citizenship ; he was made a voter ; he 
was made a part of the governmental machinery, not 
only of the State of Mississippi but of the country at 
large. Probably when these came to him he found him- 
self utterly incapable of discharging these duties and 
these responsibilities. He would point to the long his- 
tory of himself and his race in this country as a slave. 
He would say during all that time that no man of my 
race, no man of my color, was allowed to read or write; 
that in all the States in which we have lived it was a 
part of the institutions of slavery, recognized so by every- 
body, that the slave should not be educated. He would 
plead this as an excuse for his ignorance, and an excuse 
for his incapacity to discharge the great duties and the 
high responsibilities which had been placed upon him by 
the act of the Federal Government. 

"Then, sir, he might truthfully say this: When the 
time came when he was first called upon to vote in the 
State of Mississippi he voted under a law which pro- 
scribed many of the most intelligent white people of that 
State. ' In my ignorance I was warned by a law of Con- 
gress proscribing those who were disfranchised by the 



284 OUR GREAT MEN. 

reconstruction laws not to consult them, and as they had 
opposed my enfranchisement I did not feel disposed to 
consult them.' That being thus situated, being thus sud- 
denly called upon to discharge the high duties of citizen- 
ship, ignorant of the Constitution of the State, ignorant 
of the Constitution of the United States, ignorant of all 
statecraft, he was obliged to resort to what help he could 
find ; he was obliged to rely ujDon somebody. ' I found^ 
in the State of Mississippi at that time men who were' 
strangers, men who came from that section of the coun- 
try which gave me freedom. Ignorant myself, weak 
myself, unable to comprehend the great problems which 
were submitted to me for solution, I applied to them. I 
gave them my unreserved suj^port. I concurred in elect- 
ing to the Legislature of Mississippi, and to the Constitu- 
tional Convention of Mississippi, men who framed the 
Constitution, and who framed laws about which I knew 
nothing.' He would then point to the history of the leg- 
islation of that State during that period, and show that 
the taxes of that State had been raised in the course of 
four or five years more than 1,400 per cent. ; that he was 
urged by his friends to go for high taxation; he was 
advised that if taxes were imposed uj)on land at a high 
rate the owners would be compelled to surrender it, and 
that he would thus have an opportunity to get it. He | 
would point to the fact that within the short period of 
five years 6,500,000 acres of private property in land 
were sold for taxes to the State, because there were no 
private j^ersons, either white or colored, who were able to 
buy it for the taxes due on it. 

"He would point also to the further fact that taxes 



JAMES Z. GEORGE. 285 

were levied for the purpose, as it was said, of educating 
the peoj)le of Mississippi; he would show that during 
that period the fund was so manipulated that only about 
twenty-five or thirty cents in the dollar actually collected 
from the taxpayer ever went for the purpose of education. 
He would point to the further fact that in his ignorance 
and weakness he was made a tool by which this onerous 
taxation should be so diverted to the advancement of pri- 
vate individuals, of adventurers, that more money was 
actually appropriated out of the Treasury of Mississippi, 
in a period of five years, for the purpose of supporting a 
partisan newspaper, than there was for the purpose of 
education. He would also say that when funds had been 
raised for education, instead of being carefully and eco- 
nomically disposed of, in many instances the fund was 
appropriated in buying, at extravagant rates, in order to 
enrich officials and their friends, exj)ensive furniture for 
school-houses, and in paying large salaries to county 
superintendents and State superintendents. And after 
all this he would say : ' This was done because I did not 
know how to exercise the political power which was 
vested in me; I meant to do right; I knew no better; I 
was not trained in statecraft; but I was obliged, in my 
ignorance, to do what no voter ever ought to do, vote at 
the dictation of another. Circumstanced as I am, and as 
my race is, in Mississippi, the great need for me and for 
mine is that we may be enabled to discharge the trusts 
and responsibilities of citizenship properly.' That his 
material advancement, his capacity to make money, to 
deal with other men was not equal to his necessities in 
life; that he was incompetent to cope in his dealings 



2S6 OUR GREAT MEN. 

with sharpers and dishonest men ; and he would point to 
his present poverty and want of property and probably 
say that a great deal of this is attributable to that. And 
if the argument was stated to him that many years ago a 
large donation was made to the State of Mississippi for 
the purpose of education, that many thousand acres of 
land at one time, and the sixteenth section in each town- 
ship at another time, and a university fund at another 
time, he would answer: 'When these donations were 
made I was not a citizen; I was not a voter; if they were 
misappropriated and lost, I was not responsible for it ; ' 
and then referring to the history to which I have just 
alluded, he would add that every educational fund which 
had been donated in recent times by Congress to the State 
of Mississippi had also been lost. There was the agricul- 
tural school fund, which came to the State of Mississippi 
during the unhappy era of reconstruction, amounting to 
about two hundred thousand dollars, every single dollar ' 
of which had been applied during that era to other pur- 
poses than education, and that taxation in Mississippi 
to-day, taken every year from the hard earnings of the 
people, is necessary to pay the interest on that fund. He 
would say the same thing as to taxation in reference to 
the Chickasaw school fund, which was lost during the | 
war, and the same thing in reference to the University 
fund. 'All of these grand donations,' he would say, 
'have been nothing to us; they have been lost, and with^ 
out our fault.' 

"So, Mr. President, whatever may be said about 
donations of school funds to the State of Mississippi, it ' 
can not be charged to the colored man that they are lost. 



JAMES Z. GEORGE. 287 

Nor do I think that the white people there can be 
charged with this loss, but I am speaking now simply 
from the colored man's standpoint. 

'' If one of these colored men should hear that my 
colleague and myself were opposed to this bill, and he 
wanted to express his views in reference to our action, 
he would probably say to us : ' Why, I was born in Mis- 
sissippi ; I was reared in Mississippi with your people 
and with you. When the war came, and all the able- 
bodied white men of Mississippi had left the State for 
the purpose of engaging in it, leaving here only the 
women and children, I and my race stayed here ; we cul- 
tivated the soil ; we took care of your wives and children 
during that conflict, although we knew that our fate as 
free men or slaves depended upon the result. You rej)- 
resent us as well as you do the white people of Missis- 
sippi. Will you now resist this opportunity ? Will you 
reject this offering?' " 




18 



Hon. THOMAS F. BAYARD, 



OF DELAWARE. 




HOMAS FRANCIS BAYARD was born 
the 29th of October, 1828, in Wilmington, 
Delaware. He comes of a family that has 
made an honorable record in National 
affairs, and which is directly descended from Anna 
Bayard, the sister of Peter Stuyvesant, Grovernor of 'New 
Amsterdam. The grandfather of Thomas Francis Bay- 
ard, James Asheton Bayard, was born in Philadelphia 
in 1767, and was therefore a boy of nine on the breaking 
out of the Revolutionary war. Having removed to Del- 
aware Avhile still quite young, he was elected a member 
of Congress from that State, and while serving as such 
was appointed by President John Adams, Minister to 
France. He declined the appointment for reasons highly 
creditable to his sense of honor. He was subsequently 
appointed by President Madison one of the Commission- 
ers to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, and shortly after 
he returned from that mission he died, leaving four sons. 
James Asheton Bayard, the second son, represented Del- 
aware in the Senate from March 4th, 1851, to March 5th, 
1869, and was one of the leading members of that body. 
He married Anne Francis, of Philadelphia, a grand- 

(288) 




i>M#ii^s w. mawm: 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 291 

daugMer of Caj^tain Tench Francis, of the Continental 
Army. Of this marriage were born James Asheton and 
Thomas Francis Bayard and three daughters. The 
eldest son and daughter died many years ago. 

Thomas F., the younger son, at the age of thirteen 
was sent to the school of Dr. Francis L. Hawks, at 
Flushing, Long Island, where he remained for several 
years. He subsequently went to 'New York, and became 
for a brief period a clerk in the merca-ntile house of his 
brother-in-law, and from there went to the counting- 
house of an eminent Philadelphia merchant, where he 
remained until he was twenty years old. His elder 
brother died, and he was summoned back to Delaware 
to enter on the study of law. In 1851 he was admitted 
to the Bar, and in 1853 became United States District 
Attorney for Delaware, but resigned the position the 
following year to enter into copartnership with William 
Shippen in the city of Philadelphia. In 1858 Mr. Ship- 
pen died, and Mr. Bayard returned to Wilmington, 
where he has ever since resided. 

He married Louisa, daughter of Josiah Lee, of Bal- 
timore, in 1856, and they have three sons and five 
daughters living. In January, 1886, they lost their 
eldest daughter, a brilliant and accomplished young 
lady, and in a few weeks the Angel of Death again vis- 
ited the stricken family, this time taking the loved wife 
and mother. 

The 4th of March, 1869, Thomas F. Bayard entered 
the Senate as the successor of his father, whose time 
expired at noon that day. He was thus chosen, not 
because he was the son of James A. Bayard, but because 



292 OUK GREAT MEN. 

he was already recognized as a man of ability and integ- 
rity, such as is Delaware's boast that she has always 
contributed to the Senate. 

At that time there were but nine Democrats in the 
Senate, and every one of them was expected to do full 
service ; and so, on the 9th of April, but a little more than 
a month after his admission, Mr. Bayard began the 
fight, w^iich he steadily kept up for years, against the 
reconstruction measures of the party then in power. It 
would be but to write anew the history of that long 
struggle to attempt to record Mr. Bayard's part in the 
debate, for step by step, and almost inch by inch, 
he resisted every measure proposed by the Rejoub- 
licans, and he was the chosen leader of his party in 
its final and successful struggle against the famous 
"Force Bill." 

Even earlier than his entrance into the debate on 
reconstruction was Mr. Bayard's participation in finan- 
cial legislation, and eleven days after his admission to 
the Senate he made a speech on a bill then pending, in 
which he declared his inability to " understand the dif- 
ference between the principles that should be aj^plied to 
the honest extinguishment of a private debt and a pub- 
lic debt." For years, but in vain, he denounced the 
sales of gold to buy at a premium bonds not yet due, 
while the greenbacks remained unredeemed, as a false 
and dangerous policy, and he was one of the foremost 
leaders at all times in the movement for specie resump- 
tion. He never hesitated an instant about opposing the 
greenback and silver delusions which swept through his 
own party. The plea by which so many sought to 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 293 

excuse their sacrifice of consistency and convictions to a 
passing craze had no influence on Mr. Bayard. " Sir, I 
was sent here," he said, " to think on these subjects. I 
was sent here to give my best judgment on these sub- 
jects. It was not what the people might like to hear, 
but what my conscience taught me they ought to be 
told; and if I shall be found to have mistaken their 
interests, I shall not be found to have forfeited their 
respect." On another occasion he declared : "I think 
no greater insult can be offered to the people of America 
than to tell them that you suppose they will condemn a 
public man who tells the truth and endeavors to do jus- 
tice; and," he added, "if this Grovernment should fail 
and go down amid the tears of those who love con- 
stitutional liberty and republican freedom, close to the 
root of its cause of failure will be found the fact that 
her representative and public men disguised their honest 
opinions, and failed to tell the people the truth as they 
knew it to exist." 

The time came when Bayard himself was tested. 
Beginning at the foot of the Senate Finance Committee, 
he came in time to be its head, and undeniably felt hon- 
ored by the position; but when, at the height of the 
silver craze, he was called before the caucus and oflicially 
asked if he would report a bill to which he was con- 
scientiously opposed if sanctioned by the party, he 
instantly answered "IS'o," and retired, leaving his Chair- 
manship at the disposal of the caucus which gave it. 
The resignation was not accepted. 

Mr. Bayard has never been regarded as an extreme 
advocate of free trade, but he has been a persistent 




294 OUR GREAT MEN. 

friend of revenue reform, and since the growing surplus 
offered unmistakable evidence of overtaxation he has 
been amongst those who insist that there should be no 
farther delay in setting about so important a work. 
But, while insisting on tariff reform, Mr. Bayard has 
always said that, in dealing with vested rights long 
encouraged and fostered by law, we ought to act, " not 
hastily and in no spirit of hostility, but in a judicial 
temper." He opened on behalf of the Democrats the 
great debate on the tariff bill which the House sent to 
the Senate in July, 1882, and he then declared that the 
time had now come for considering the question down to 
its very roots. Reduction must be made, and the princi- 
ple must be established once more that public property 
could not be taken for private use, and that the public 
taxing power could not be used to promote individual 
interests. " There," he said, " is the heresy, there is the 
danger. Into that, I do not say criminally, I do not say 
unpatriotically, but naturally and selfishly, I believe a 
favored class in this country have entered, so that to-day 
an unequal distribution of the burden of taxation rests 
on the American people. * * * * i would be glad 
to-day to go heart and hand with those of my fellows-citi- 
zens who have a share in these undue privileges in order 
that they should themselves, by taking part in the reform 
w^hich I am satisfied ought to come and is to come, pre- 
vent it from being violent or extreme." Such has been 
Mr. Bayard's consistency and moderation in this matter 
that he has enjoyed the confidence of men of all shades 
of opinion in his own party, with the exception of the 
extreme protectionists. 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 295 

Mr. Bayard has been a consistent advocate of civil- 
service reform, and is almost constitutionally a foe to the 
spoils system. He gave Senator Pendleton a hearty and 
unfailing support after the latter had introduced the 
civil-service law now in force. Mr. Pendleton will cheer- 
fully testify that he received from no other Senator more 
persistent aid and encouragement than was given him by 
Mr. Bayard, who specially devoted himself to meeting 
the several insidious side attacks made on the bill. In 
response to a complaint by Senator Brown, of Georgia, 
that many grossly incompetent men were already in 
public office, Mr. Bayard said: "Why are they there? 
They are there undoubtedly under a system that needs 
reform. I seek to remove the cause that enables them 
to go there. * * * I want no system which has 
resulted in placing such men there to continue. I do 
not wish my political opponents to place such men there, 
and Grod forbid that I should assist in placing men of my 
own political party of like character there. * * * I 
wish here to say that I do not desire to see a Republi- 
can spoils system replaced by a Democratic spoils sys- 
tem." He declared his belief that if the bill passed, and 
was executed in the spirit which animated those who 
framed it, "the reckless and trading politician" would 
find his occupation gone, and that the offices, salaries 
and official power of the country would cease to be 
expended "to make our elections more savage, more 
embittered, more anxious, every year." 

Mr. Bayard took a prominent part in the debates aris- 
ing out of the disputed Presidential election of 1876, and 
served as a member of the Electoral Commission, voting 



296 OUR GREAT MEN. 

with the minority on the question of awarding the votes 
of Louisiana and Florida to Mr. Hayes, but voting with 
other Democrats and with the majority against counting 
the Cronin vote in Oregon for Mr. Tilden. He regarded 
the decision finally reached as a defiance of justice and 
the evidence, but as an accomplished fact he recognized 
it, and treated as absurd the argument that because he 
did not believe Mr. Hayes entitled to the Presidency, he 
should decline to vote in accord with his own convictions 
to sustain Mr. Hayes' veto of the silver bill. 

Mr. Bayard began to be mentioned as a probable 
Democratic candidate for President almost as soon as the 
result of the election gave evidence of the wisdom of his 
protest in the Baltimore Convention against accej)ting 
Greeley, and in the Convention of 1876, which nominated 
Mr. Tilden, Mr. Bayard received thirty-three votes. In 
the Cincinnati Convention of 1880 he was next to the 
leading candidate, receiving 153 J votes to 171 for Han- 
cock on the first ballot, Hancock being nominated on the 
second. In the Chicago Convention of 1884, Mr. Bayard 
was again next to the leading candidate, receiving 170 
votes to 392 cast for Mr. Cleveland on the first ballot, 
eighty-eight being the highest number cast for any one 
else. On the second and final ballot, also, Mr. Bayard's 
vote was next to Mr. Cleveland's. As soon as it was 
known that Mr. Cleveland was elected, public opinion 
jumped with singular unanimity to the opinion that Mr. 
Bayard would be the leading member of his Cabinet, and 
this opinion was confirmed when Mr. Cleveland invited 
Mr. Bayard to Albany for consultation early in Decem- 
ber of 1884. 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 297 

He was appointed Secretary of State by President 
Cleveland the 4th of March, 1885. 

One of the able speeches of Mr. Bayard during his 
service in the United States Senate was on United States 
notes as a legal tender, from which the following is 
given : 

"Capital is the result of labor and frugality; it is by 
the virtues of thrift, economy and self-denial, working 
under the instruction of intelligence and enlightened 
self-interest, that capital is first created and then accu- 
mulated. 

"Wealth and property of all descrij)tions are but 
forms of capital. Encouragement is given by the insti- 
tutions of property, by the creation of government, by 
the enactment of laws, to induce men to exercise their 
faculties to gain wealth. Is all this founded upon fallacy 
and wrong? Is there to be discrimination, suspicion and 
assault visited upon those individuals of society who have 
been more successful than others in the accumulation of 
property ? Is it not ' money power ' that enables a poor 
laborer to become the owner of the pick-ax or shovel 
with which he prosecutes his daily task? Is it not 
' money power ' that enables him to procure a wheel-bar- 
row? Is it not 'money power' that enables his savings 
of a year's labor, temperance and frugality, to give him 
the means to purchase a horse and cart? Is it not 
' money power ' that enables him to educate his children 
and fit them for an improved condition in life ? Is it not 
the same ' money power ' that crowns his life of honesty, 
sobriety, and industry with an old age of comfort and 
respectability ? 



298 OUR GREAT MEN, 

"Such, sir, are the humble but honorable and useful a| 
careers that America offers to the poor of all lands ; and ™ 
of all institutions to secure such results, a money having 
real value is the chief, because it is the true and only 
road by which the laborer honestly becomes the cap- 
italist. 

" Mr. President, there are few assemblages of men to 
whom I could appeal with more confidence to bear out the 
truth of my present utterances than to my honored asso- 
ciates in this Chamber, so many of whom have illustrated 
in their own careers the advantages and true glory of 
American republican institutions. 

"I do not shut my eyes, Mr. President, to the fact 
that the equal and wholesome distribution of property, 
which it was hoped by the founders of our Government 
would be attained by the abolition of the rules of primo- 
geniture, of entailments, of f)erpetuities, and the division 
of interstate estates among daughters and sons alike, has 
been greatly defeated. And I am inclined to believe the 
system of incorporation which we have introduced into all 
branches of industrial pursuits will be found nearly equal 
to the effects of primogeniture and mortmain combined in 
its influence upon the aggregation of wealth into a single 
and never-dying grasp. 

" But the millionaires of to-day, now to be counted by 
scores, where twenty years ago they were to be counted 
by units — were twenty years ago penniless boys, and I 
can not comprehend in this vague denunciation of their 
'money power' at what point of their accumulations con- 
demnation and proscription are to commence, or should 
their riches take wings, as they have in so many conspic- 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 299 

uous instances, whether pardon will then await them in 
their poverty for their former pecuniary success. 

"To no one thing, however, do I attribute this une- 
qual division of property in this country so much as 
to the resort by the Government to the use of inconvert- 
ible legal-tender j^aper money, and I believe with Thomas 
Jefferson that ; 

"'The abuses of paper money are inveterate — hy 
breaking up the measure of value that it makes a lottery of 
all private property can not he denied.'' 

"It is from such results that communism is the out- 
growth, and to the distress caused by unwise financial 
management I attribute the dangerous projects, fallacious 
schemes, and attempts to array the force of numbers 
against property which we witness all over the country, 
and which afford such opportunities for demagogues to 
ply their arts and excite an unthinking and suffering 
people to the adoption of false remedies and destructive 
measures of sup]3osed relief. 

•T" ^ *T- 'T' '^ ^" 

"Mr. President, centralization of power in any gov- 
ernment is to be dreaded. Under it the 'individual 
withers,' and local self-government in which are grown 
the seeds of hardy, self-reliant virtues and capacities are 
destroyed. If this be true of other governments and 
peoples, how especially true of our own, where a terri- 
tory so vast, embracing populations so heterogeneous in 
race, pursuits and traditions are brought into a union 
under a single constitution, which is the supreme law of 
the land. The gradual absorption of jurisdiction by the 
Greneral Government in so many ways during the past 



300 OUR GREAT MEN. 

fifteen years, its invasion of the domain of the States, its 
interference with subjects and matters so essentially 
proper for local cognizance and control, have justly 
alarmed those who have at heart the preservation of the 
Union under our Federal theory and constitutional gov- 
ernment. 

" I believe this recognition is wide-spread, and the 
necessity admitted of a rediffusion and redistribution of 
powers which in the emergencies and heat of civil war 
have been unduly absorbed by the National Government. 
Let us call to mind the legend of our National seal, 
^JE ]ilurihus unmn^ — that the States form a Union 'out of 
many ' — not a unit. But let me ask : What act of cen- 
tralization is so potent or in any degree equals that 
which assumes to create values by the fiat of Congress, 
and compels such values to be accepted as an equivalent 
for any indebtedness? In my view, all other steps to 
centralization are as nothing compared to this. 

" The divine Master asked, near two thousand years 
ago, 'which of you with taking thought can add to his 
stature one cubit ? ' 

" May it not be repeated now and here, when ' with 
taking thought' men seem to believe they can create 
values without limit and measures of values, and impress 
their will on printed slij)s of paper, and rely uj^on their 
being received as equivalents for the labors of a life-time. 
Is the present attemj^t anything else than a scheme to 
avert and avoid the law contained in the primeval 
curse: That by the sweat of his face shall man eat 
bread ? 

"Sir, there is a ^])\v\t of irreverence in these fiat, 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 301 

money plans of assumed omnipotence that ought to shock 
the minds and hearts of men. 

"Mr. President, I have not considered this great 
question from a party stand-point. It touches too closely 
the 'welfare of every human being in our society for me 
to dwarf it to the mere interests of a party. But if in 
the name of party I should speak, and I should call the 
long roll of distinguished statesmen and patriots who 
led the Democratic masses in the past, and taught them 
that the Constitution of the United States was the 
supreme law of the land, and that steady subordination 
to its provisions in time of peace as well as in war time, 
was the first and paramount duty of every citizen in or 
out of office, what name could there be found in all 
that illustrious band to approve or warrant the emis- 
sion at will of Treasury notes by Congress, and their 
endowment with legal-tender power — as * lawful money ' 
— to pay all debts, public and private; to control 
every contract and every obligation known to human 
affairs ? 

"Sir, this debate has begun, and it will close, and 
the name of no Democrat will be uttered who at any 
time approved, or in any way countenanced, so mon- 
strous an assertion of power. It is utterly beside the 
question to read here long extracts from Jefferson and 
Jackson denouncing abuses of j)ower by great Grovern- 
ment corporations. It is a profanation of their great 
names ; it is an insult to their honest fames to suggest, 
or even hint, that they or any of them ever counte- 
nanced or approved the emission of legal-tender paper 
money. 



302 OUR GREAT MEN. 

"I could safely take the declarations of party faith 
and principles — of every national, of every State, and I 
believe I might truly say of every county convention, of 
the Democratic party, from the foundation of the Gov- 
ernment down to the present year, and find nothing but 
denunciation of legal-tender paper money — and, on the 
contrary, you will find the steady declaration, from gen- 
eration to generation, in war and in peace, that gold and 
silver coins are the only true and constitutional money 
of the United States — according to the doctrines of true 
Democracy. 

"In considering so grave and all-important a princi- 
ple as lies at the root of this discussion, I shall not turn 
aside to impale individuals upon their inconsistencies; 
such occujDation would be trivial and unworthy; but 
when this legal-tender power, eighteen years ago, was 
sought, for the first time in our history, to be exercised 
by Congress, there was not to be found a Democrat in 
either House who did not deny it. Look to the record; 
see how they voted, how they spoke. I am half tempted 
to recite here the fervent and true eloquence with which 
some even now members of this Senate denounced the 
assertion of so disastrous a power. But their action has 
passed into history, and can be revised by those who 
desire it. 

" I can only say that, if I sought for texts peculiarly 
condemnatory of such a power as I now seek to with- 
draw from the paper issues of the Government, I could 
find them abundantly in the speeches and writings of 
the most distinguished, trusted and authoritative leaders 
of the Democratic party. I am content to follow in their 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 303 

footsteps, and here to-day to plant myself more firmly in 
their principles, which time has proven to be founded 
upon truth and justice. And, intending no impeachment 
of others, I jnust say that I am unable to comprehend 
the logic and reasoning which, admitting such a law to 
be in violation of the Constitution, yet justifies a vote to 
perpetuate its presence on the statute-book. I confess- 1 
am unable to construe the obligation I have taken to 
support and defend that Constitution, and bear true faith 
and allegiance to the same. 

"Mr, President, I do not propose on this occasion to 
consider the interesting and important questions of bank 
or Treasury issues of notes as currency, nor of the much- 
needed reforms in the tarifi" of duties on imports, nor the 
navigation laws, nor the parity between silver and gold, 
and the practicability of retaining both metals by their 
free coinage under present regulations of their respective 
values. The question I have endeavored to discuss and 
place upon its true and essential principles as exemplified 
by all human experience, is of such importance as to war- 
rant and demand a consideration by itself. 

"Of course it intimately affects and controls every 
department of human dealings, but it should be settled 
upon a principle and then applied in practice. When the 
other questions referred to shall come before the Senate I 
shall not leave any one in doubt as to my position in 
regard to them, but I do not include them in the present 
discussion. 

"The proposition embraced in the resolution before 
the Senate has made deep impression on the minds of all 
thinking men, and expressions of opinion in the form of 



304 OUR GREAT MEN. 

petitions and memorials have been presented here from 
many States of the Union. 

"The commercial and manufacturing centers of popu- 
lation and industry have naturally expressed their opin- 
ions, and by abundant signatures have testified their 
great interest and decided conviction in favor of the pas- 
sage of the resolution. Thus from Boston and Massachu- 
setts have come memorials ; from Philadelphia, the great 
seat of manufactures ; from Baltimore, with her vast and 
growing domestic and shipping interest; from Wilming- 
ton, Delaware, and the fertile j^eninsula between the 
Chesapeake and Delaware Bays; and from the Empire 
State and her great city has come the same impressive 
request that the resolution now before us be adopted. 

"The citizens who append their signatures to these 
memorials include in their number men of all shades of 
political belief — merchants, manufacturers, judges, gov- 
ernors, bankers, lawyers, laborers, farmers, mechanics, 
and political economists. Among them are names held 
in the highest honor and esteem as private citizens and 
public servants. 

"Many of them have made the study of finance and 
political economy, of money and its laws, the occupation 
of their lives, and are looked up to by their fellow-citizens 
as i;)eculiarly fitted to give counsel on such topics. 

" When, lately, some of our communities in the South 
and West were scourged with pestilence, and a commis- 
sion from this body was sent to investigate and report 
upon the true condition of affairs in order to adopt plans 
of relief, upon whose advice and testimony did they 
most rely? Naturally upon those who had sj^ent their 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 305 

lives in the study of the laws of health and cure of 
disease. 

"Because medical men gave their testimony on such 
subjects, it did not seem that they were spoken of in the 
Senate in terms of disrespect and distrust; on the con- 
trary, their testimony was read with great respect. 

"Nor do I see the justice or wisdom (I say nothing 
of the propriety) of selecting the fifteen hundred and odd 
citizens of New York State and city for disrespectful com- 
ment, as has been done in this debate, because they have 
exercised in the usual and orderly manner the right to 
memorialize Congress on a matter deeply touching their 
interest in connection with a subject upon which their 
avocations, experience and studies have especially fitted 
them to speak. There is not a member of this Senate 
who would not feel himself benefited by the counsel and 
judgment of a great many of the wise, upright and excel- 
lent men who signed the memorial from New York, in 
any matter touching the pecuniary interests of himself or 
those dependent upon him. 

"But I beg to draw the attention of the Senate and 
the country to the Wisconsin memorial presented by a 
Senator from that State, because we have been assured 
that universal opinion in opposition to this resolution 
prevails in the Western States. 

"From Milwaukee a most respected delegation has 
come all the way to Washington to represent public opin- 
ion in that locality. 

"I trust they may be spared an attempt to create 
sectional prejudice against them, as was done in the 
case of the Eastern memorialists, but may be treated 

19 



306 OUR GREAT MEN. 

with the respect due to citizens of character and intel- 
ligence. 

"Ten years ago I endeavored in vain to im^^ress this 
Senate with the manifest and paramount duty of restoring 
and establishing a sound currency, a real money of daily 
measure of all contracts. 

"In a speech made by me, March 7, 1870, on the 
Funding Bill, I endeavored to show how much more 
pressing and important was the need of a sound founda- 
tion for all contracts than a prepayment and refunding 
of our bonds not due. 

" But my efforts were in vain, and the deplorable 
policy inaugurated by Mr. Boutwell in his administra- 
tion of the Treasury was continued. From 1869 to 1875 
the sale of nearly $500,000,000 of gold coin received 
from custom duties, and its investment in United States 
bonds at high premiums, was continued, and all that 
time the currency was suffered to stand unredeemed, 
and no step taken to resume specie payment. Such a 
policy precluded resumption, and to it I attribute in a 
large degree the sufferings which followed in the crash 
of 1873. 

"What I have said to-day is little more than repeti- 
tion of what I have been moved to say more than once 
before, in regard to which I have been vindicated by 
events. 

" I wish to say a few words to explain why the reso- 
lution before the Senate does not allow the United States 
notes to be receieved ' for duties on imports or interests on 
the public debt.' 

" By the act of February 25, 1862, under which the 



THOMAS r. BAYAKD. 307 

first issue of these notes was authorized, it was, in sec- 
tion 1, expressly provided that: 

" 'Notes herein authorized shall be receivable in pay- 
ment of all taxes, internal duties, excises, debts and 
demands of every kind due to the United States, exGe;pt 
duties on imports^ and of all claims and demands against 
the United States of every kind whatsoever, except for 
interest iipo7i bonds and notes, which shall he paid in coin, etc.'' 

" And by section 5 of the same act it was provided : 

" ' Sec. 5. Aiid he it further enacted, That all duties 
on imported goods shall be paid in coin, or in notes 
payable on demand heretofore authorized to be issued, 
and by law receivable in payment of public dues, and 
the coin so paid shall be set apart as a special fund, and 
shall be applied as follows : 

" ' First. To the payment in coin of the interest on 
the bonds and notes of the United States. 

^''^ Second. To the purchase or payment of one per 
cent, of the entire debt of the United States, to be made 
within each fiscal year after the 1st day of July, 1862, 
which is to be set apart as a sinking fund, and the inter- 
est of which shall in like manner be applied to the pur- 
chase or payment of the public debt as the Secretary of 
the Treasury shall from time to time direct. 

" ' Third. The residue thereof shall be paid into the 
Treasury of the United States.' 

" I am unable to construe this law otherwise than a 
distinct restriction of the notes — that they should never 
be receivable for duties on imports — and coupled with it 
the distinct pledge that these duties should be paid hi 
coin, and be ' set apart as a special fund ' for the security 




308 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of the interest on the public debt. It was, in my judg- 
ment, unwise and derogatory to a government like our 
own thus to ' 2^^^ ^^ pledge ' any one of its sources of 
revenue specially — it savored too much of pawnbroker- 
age — but it was nevertheless done, and the contract made 
by the authorized agents of the American j^eople. It 
may seem useless, now that credit is established and the 
bonds above par, when they have been called in and 
exchanged, that this law should be enforced; but the 
law of 1862 has never been repealed, but stood in full 
force as the utterance of the Government when the new 
bonds went out in place of old ones, and the inscription 
on the notes is the same as it originally was. I propose 
to be strict in the performance of public obligations, 
because we can not infuse the spirit of honor and good 
faith, nay, uberrima fides^ too much into our public acts. 
It was for the security of the holders of our public obli- 
gations that these pledges were made, and they alone 
can release us from them. 

"It may seem now a useless formality to pay at the 
custom-house to the Government the gold and silver 
coin we have drawn from its Treasury on its own notes, 
but it is a formality carried out in a spirit of exact per- 
formance of a contract, and that alone makes it dignified 
and proper. 

" Mr. President, at much greater length than I 
desired I have expressed my reasons for urging the 
adoption of this resolution, and in concluding I can only 
say how incompetently I feel I have dealt with a great 
subject profoundly affecting the happiness, the morals, 
the welfare of our country. But I have at least tried to 



THOMAS F. BAYARD. 309 

treat the question in a worthy spirit, and do my best in 
the service of truth and justice. Whether the Senate 
will concur in my views I know not, for a subject like 
this has never been, and will never be, made by me a 
subject of party caucus or personal canvass for votes ; 
but I believe that good sense and right feeling are per- 
manent and enduring forces in American politics, and in 
that faith I shall rely upon these qualities vindicating 
themselves in the minds of my countrymen as time shall 
pass on. 

"The issue is nothing less than whether there shall 
be security to labor for its savings, to thrift and indus- 
try for their just results. The painful earnings of daily 
toil and the accumulated wealth of generations are alike 
involved; the creation of property by labor, and its 
transmission to posterity, are all alike affected by what 
I have proposed, and, not being a believer in Congres- 
sional alcliemy^ I ask that we now abandon any further 
attempt to make it successful." 



Hon. RICHARD P. BLAND, 



OF MISSOURI. 




ICHARD PARKS BLAND, of Lebanon, 
was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, 
August 19th, 1835. He is entirely a self- 
made man. His j^arents died when he, 
the eldest of four children, was but fourteen years old. 
The youngest died at an early age, and Richard and his 
brother Charles educated themselves and their sister, 
the youngest of the three. 

In 1855 he removed to Missouri, from there to Cali- 
fornia, and from California to that j^ortion of Utah Ter- 
ritory now the State of Nevada. He located in Virginia 
City, and there commenced the practice of law in 1861. 
He was Treasurer of Carson County, Utah Territory, 
from 1860 till the formation of the State government of 
Nevada. 

In 1865 he returned to Missouri, and, locating in 
Rolla, commenced jDracticing law in partnership with his 
brother, Charles C. Bland. He remained there four 
years, and then removed to Lebanon, his present home, 
and there continued the practice of his profession for 
three years, when he was elected to the Forty-third 
Congress as a Democrat, and he has been a member of 

310 



EICHARD P. BLAND. 311 

the House from that time until now. Mr. Bland is a 
leader on the silver question, and has sometimes been 
called the ''Father of the remonetized silver dollar." 

On the bill to establish a new sub-treasury at Louis- 
ville, Kentucky, Mr. Bland said: 

"Under the act of last Congress providing for the 
deposit or transfer of silver coin and subsidiary coin 
from the mints to the sub-treasuries, it was intended to 
place the silver coinage, both the subsidiary and the 
standard, in a convenient position for circulation. And, 
inasmuch as these sub-treasuries are the only means by 
which these deposits can be made, it does seem to me a 
matter of convenience and a matter of importance in 
securing the circulation of this money to have it depos- 
ited near the populations who desire it. 

"Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, we have a bill pending 
now for the purpose of issuing certificates on silver, and 
I understand it is the will or the wish of the majority 
of this House at least, that a larger issue of these cer- 
tificates be made, l^ow, under the ruling of the Treas- 
urer, Mr. Jordan, these certificates can not be issued 
fully. The coin itself is first paid out, is first received 
by some holder, and then redeposited. Now, as to this 
coin that is all piled up in Washington and in New York, 
it is almost impossible, in the first place, to get it in cir- 
culation, and, in the second place, to deposit it anywhere 
and receive the certificate for it. 

****** 

" If there was some law (and I think there ought to 
be) by which the Treasurer or the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury would be directed to issue certificates on the coin 



312 OUR GREAT MEN. 

without its being paid out, there might be no great neces- 
sity for these sub-treasuries, because then the certificates 
coukl be issued and could go into circuhxtion; but under 
the ruling of Treasurer Jordan himself, no certificate can 
be used until the coin is first j)aid out and receired by 
the holder and redeposited. If that be so, we ought to 
have a sub-treasury in every city of fifty thousand people, 
in order to enable this coin to be deposited and go into 
circulation, and be redeposited and certificates taken if 
the jDcople desired them. If they did not so desire, then 
let the coin be deposited in the centers of population, 
where it can be issued and go into circulation. The coin- 
age of silver is peculiarly situated. The bullion is bought 
by the Government. 

" Holders of bullion have no right to go to the Mint 
and have it coined and put into circulation as they could 
w^ith g(5ld. The Government exercises a mono]3oly of the 
silver coinage by purchasing so much per month and coin- 
ing it. It is for the Government to put it into circulation 
or not, and heretofore it seems to have been the policy of 
the Treasury officials to keep it out of circulation, but it 
is the policy of the people to institute some means to put 
it in circulation. There is about eighty millions of money 
now, standard silver dollars, in the Treasury of the United 
States that ought to be in circulation. How are you to 
get it into circulation ? By simj^ly coining it and holding 
it in the Mint and in the Treasury and the sub-treasuries 
in Washington, New York, and the few others through- 
out the country? Is it not a matter of importance that 
this money, coined by the Government, shall be sent to 
the centers of population where it can be placed in circu- 



RICHAED P. BLAND. 313 

lation, or wliere it can be returned and certificates taken 
if we are to adopt the policy of issuing certificates for 
silver coin? I would rather, however, see the policy 
adopted of issuing coin notes on the deposit of gold or 
silver coin without distinction. I would abolish the 
whole system of issuing silver and gold certificates sepa- 
rately, and let any holder of gold or silver coin deposit 
it, receiving a coin certificate, redeemable at the pleasure 
of the Government, in gold or silver. But when you sub- 
stitute a policy of that kind you must provide conveni- 
ences for holders of coin to deposit it in the sub-treasury, 
receive their certificates, and take the certificates back to 
the sub-treasury and receive the coin again whenever 
they desire. The national banks are not in favor of that 
sort of money, and they will not give it any particular 
circulation if they can avoid it. They are not the parties 
to charge with such transactions, and, as against national- 
bank deposits, I am in favor of sub-treasury deposits, so 
as to take that business away from the national banks." 









1 



Hon. JOHN A. LOGAN, 

OF ILLINOIS. 




|OHN A. LOGAN is one of the members of 
the United States Senate whose name will 
live in history. He is a prominent Repub- 
lican leader in the Senate, and he carries 
the honor well. It is a well-known fact that some men 
are born leaders, while it is the nature of others to be 
led. Mr. Logan is one of the leaders among men. He is 
a man of magnificent physique, and a brilliant orator. 

Senator Logan is of Irish descent, his father having 
come to this country some three years previous to the 
birth of the young statesman. He was born in Jackson 
County, Illinois, February 9th, 1826. He owes the foun- 
dation of his education to his father. Dr. John Logan, 
who M^as a man of culture and refinement. 

When war was declared between Mexico and the 
United States he enlisted as a private, and was chosen 
Lieutenant of the First Illinois Infantry, and for a time 
was Adjutant of this regiment, and became Quartermas- 
ter before the close of the war. When peace was restored 
he studied law, attending the Louisville University; he 
completed his law studies and was admitted to the Bar in 
1852. The same year he was elected to the Illinois Leg- 

(314) 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 315 

islature, and was re-elected in 1853, '56 and '57. In 1853 
he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of the Third Judicial 
District of the State of Illinois, and held that position for 
four years. He was a member of the Electoral College 
in 1856, when Buchanan and Breckinridge were elected. 
He was a member of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh 
Congresses, resigning to enter the Union Army. Enter- 
ing the Army as Colonel, he attained the rank of Major- 
General before the surrender. 

« 

President Johnson appointed him Minister to Mexico, 
but he declined. He was elected to the Fortieth and 
re-elected to the Forty-first Congresses as a Republican. 
During the Fortieth Congress he served on the impeach- 
ment trial of President Johnson. He was re-elected a 
Representative to the Forty-second Congress, but was 
elected to the United States Senate before the session 
convened. He served from March, 1871, to March, 1877, 
and then resumed his professional life in Chicago. He 
was again elected to the United States Senate, taking his 
seat in March of '79. 

In 1884 he received the nomination for Vice-Presi- 
dent on the Blaine ticket. Failing in the election to the 
"Vice-Presidency he was re-elected to the Senate. 

Mr. Logan's name will always be associated with the 
idea of executive sessions of the Senate with open doors. 
The following is a portion of his great speech on that 
subject. Mr. Logan said: 

" Oh, sir, I believe, and I think we all do, in honest 
and in fair dealing with the people that we represent. 
I am not afraid of any of my official acts being exposed 
to the people. I may not do what my constituents 



316 OUR GREAT MEN. 

always desire; I may fail in many respects in reiDresent- 
ing their wishes; I may fail to know what their wishes 
are; yet I am not afraid to have them see my votes, and 
I vote about as often as any Senator. I am perfectly will- 
ing they shall see my votes on confirmations, and if I 
dared do it I would tell every day what my vote was in 
every secret session; but I can not; this great and 
important secret must be locked up for all time in my 
breast. 

" I have spoken about the inducement to have the 
truth always go before the country and the people unde- 
ceived. Sir, truth is a jewel, though not possessed by 
all men ; let us give encouragement to all men to adorn 
themselves with that jewel, by opening the doors and 
letting that truth that ought to go everywhere be sent 
out to the world, so that our course and our conduct may 
be open to insj^ection. 

" It was said long centuries ago, ' Let your light so 
shine before men that they may see your good works.' 
If we are to let our light so shine before men that they 
are to see our good works, we should not cover those 
acts in darkness; we should not throw over them the 
shade and darkness of night through which the light of 
truth can not penetrate ; but, sir, we should let those 
acts of ours be such that the light should flow from them, 
and our constituents determine whether they are good or 
whether they are bad. 

"But, Mr. President, let me state one other proposi- 
tion. I intend to deal in general principles with refer- 
ence to this question, as I do not wish to trespass upon 
the ground over which the Senator from Connecticut 



JOHX A. LOGAN. 317 

passed; but there is a great principle underlying this. 
There has never been a shackle that has fallen from 
men that has not been forced oif either by the strong 
arm or by public opinion. Liberty comes by degrees, 
and not like a flood of light thrown instantly upon the 
world. It comes by constant pressure, it comes not 
from the source of kings or monarchs, but it comes from 
the class that requires to be released, from the class 
that feels the oppressor's hand. It germinates there and 
grows there until finally it bursts the bonds that confine 
it, and then those that confined it are apt to shout the 
loudest for it. Everything grows in reference to power, 
to place, to government and all that there is connected 
with the aifairs of man, except that particular system or 
policy which is believed in by a certain class that never 
yields, never grows and never severs the bonds until by 
force of public opinion it is accomplished. 

" Look back for centuries ; take governments insti- 
tuted; the power in one head; his or her rule enforced 
upon the people, not through the people, enforced not by 
them but upon them. When the idea entered the minds 
of men that the modes, procedure and laws and adminis- 
tration of government were too strong, too powerful, the 
people who were oppressed broke the bonds and gave 
to themselves that measure of liberty which the times 
then demanded or would admit of. 

"So it is to-day, and so it is in all governments. 
Take the English government to-day, where the queen 
sits enthroned with but little power. That power once 
in the head of that government has been taken away, 
step by step, by that growth of liberty in the minds of 



318 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the people, the knowledge which they have gained in 
reference to governmental affairs, and the intelligence 
they have acquired in regard to their own rights and the 
policy which is beneficial to them, until now that people 
have privileges unthought of by them a century ago. 

" Take the case of Ireland to-day, downtrodden and 
trampled under foot for centuries. Why is it that the 
grandest statesman whom England has produced for 
ages, perhaps, is to-day struggling in behalf of down- 
trodden Ireland? It is because of the growth of intelli- 
gence among the people ; it is because of the expansion 
of the great idea of liberty ; it is the light of intelligence 
breaking in upon the minds of the people, and they are 
demanding certain rights. 

"Ireland struggles for what? For a change, for 
more power to the people, in reference to government, 
more privileges, more independence. Why? Because 
the people have grow^n more intelligent and have now a 
better understanding of their rights. 

" So, in our own country, everything has grown with 
the growth of intelligence, except in the fact of the Sen- 
ate of the United States in reference to the right of the 
people to know what you and I are doing — the only part 
of the people to-day in this Government who have not 
advanced wdth the growth of the country, and who now 
stand back with a veil drawn between the people and 
themselves. 

"How have the privileges and rights of the people 
of this country grown? Step by step they have de- 
manded and obtained rights from Congress ; ste]) by 
step they have demanded and obtained greater privileges 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 319 

and protection in the amendments of the Constitution of 
the United States, being fifteen amendments in all. Step 
by step this great Republic has moved forward; the 
demands of the country have enlarged the boundaries of 
your Constitution. Step by step you have enlarged and 
expanded your laws. They must have a growth along 
with the intelligence of the people; they must expand 
with the intelligence and necessities of the people. The 
only place where that growth has been stinted in its 
rules is in the Senate of the United States. 

"What was it that abolished slavery in this country? 
It was the immediate result of war, all people say; but 
it was the intelligence of the people, their growth and ad- 
vance in civilization, and the knowledge of the rights of 
man, Avhich caused that band which bound^ human beings 
to masters to be severed by war, and that made the slave 
to leap forward as a free man before the civilized world. 

"While speaking of the advance in civilization and 
intelligence in the world, we find here in our own midst 
another growth. While the idea of privileges to man 
has been in the advance, stimulated by the willingness 
of those in power in this Republic to yield to their 
demands ; on the other hand, we find there a growth in 
the power of money and corporations which has been 
unhealthy to the growth of republican ideas in our 
country. But whenever that growth becomes so over- 
towering, so colossal and powerful in its proportions that 
it becomes oppressive, then it is the duty of the repre- 
sentatives of the people to check and control that power. 
So it is with reference to everything else connected with 
the Government. 



320 OUR GREAT MEN. 

"As we grow we must have our checks and our bal- 
ances, in order that the idea of liberty and of jorivileges 
to men shall go along together, and that one shall not be 
caused to shrink Avhile the other grows, and that all may 
move along harmoniously together. The way for us to 
do is to make wholesome laws and execute them to pro- 
tect all lawful rights of every citizen. You will then 
have peace, prosperity, happiness and fraternal feeling. 

"Let me go one step further: There are but two 
ways by which things are remedied when they become 
offensive and oj^pressive to the joeople. One is by revo- 
lution, which may, and probably would, destroy all gov- 
ernment as well as liberty ; the other is by reformation, 
which may amend all. So, when the people in any land, 
I care not where, become oj^pressed or are denied rights 
they are entitled to enjoy, they will have them, and the 
legislation of the country must comport with the rights 
of the people or else one of two results must follow, either 
reformation or revolution. Reformation is my idea — law 
and order — reform as we move forward, and right all the 
wrongs. That is the character of reformation which 
every man Avho is an honest man ought to desire instead 
of revolution. 

"Paul said: 'When I was a child I thought as a 
child, I spake as a child ; but when I became a man I 
put away childish things.' We in the Senate of the 
United States are not children — we ought not to be ; but 
when our Government was a child it dressed itself in a 
garb of secrecy. It was a child, and it thought as a 
child; but when this great Government, majestic in all 
its proportions, became a man, why should it try to be a 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 321 

child any longer? Why should the Senate cling to the 
childish ways of the olden times, that our acts may be 
obscured from the sight of men who gave us the places 
that we occupy? Let us put away childish things; let 
us put on the garb of a man, and assert the rights of the 
American people in this Senate Chamber to which they 
are entitled, for they are entitled to know what you and 

I do. 

" There is a strong desire on the part of a great many 
Senators to have secret sessions every day. It seems to 
bring joy to their very soul to see the people rushed out 
of these galleries and the doors shut, as if some great, 
mysterious thing was going to transpire, as if some great 
calamity was going to befall the country, and therefore 
the doors must be closed. In other words, you drive the 
people out of these galleries, and why? To show^ our 
importance? Is that it? To show that the Senate of 
the United States is a body of men who must have 
secrets of State ? Is that it ? Who are we magicians ? 
Will we turn sticks into snakes in secret, or something 
equally mysterious ? Is there a Senator who does not 
know that it is a farce, an absolute farce ? Nothing has 
ever transpired in the Senate in executive session in 
reference to the confirmation of a man, to my knowledge, 
that ought not to have been made public. 

"I want to see a vote on the j)ending resolution; I 
want to see Senators who announce that the world ought 
to know everything that is going on voting in executive 
sessions the same way they talk on the floor when the 
doors are open. This mysterious thing of doing in secret 
what you will not do openly is not manly. It gives the 

20 



322 OUR GREAT MEN. 

chance for men to vote in secret one way and talk in open 
Senate another. 

* * * * "Why should the doors of committees 
not be open if the committees want them to be open ? Is 
there any objection to it? I never did anything in a 
committee I would not do in open day. It is a mere 
question for the committee themselves. If they do not 
want the public in to bother them they keep them out; 
but the public do not come into this Chamber to bother 
you. That is a very different proposition. You have no 
galleries in your committee rooms, and what you do there 
is made public, is published every day. That is a mere 
question of convenience ; but this is not a question of con- 
venience, it is a question of the right of the people. 
****** 

"We are not discussing the question of committees, 
but we are discussing the question of executive sessions 
of the Senate of the United States, and committees have 
nothing whatever to do with this proposition. But there 
is this to be said in reference to it : A committee is raised 
for the purpose of transacting business that comes before 
the Senate. The nominations go before the committees, 
but here is the 2:>lace where they are acted ujDon, and that 
action ought to be opened up. It is here in the Senate 
Chamber that the business is transacted ; it is here in the 
Senate Chamber that the vote is taken ; it is here in the 
Senate Chamber that nominations are passed ujoon, and 
your final action determines the result. This is the 
place, and this is where the jDOople want the doors 
opened, that they may see and know what we do. 

"The people have not asked you to open your com- 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 323 

mittees, and they have not thought of it, unless you 
desire to open them, but they do say these Chamber 
doors should be opened ; and not only that, but they will 
thunder at them until they are opened ; and, mark what 
I tell you, they will be opened. It will not be long- 
either. You gentlemen may revel in the dark for awhile 
over nominations, and delight yourselves to go out and 
know something that the people do not know. 'Oh, it 
charms me so ; I am filled with knowledge that I can not 
give to the world ; I have a great secret in my bosom that 
I can not give you.' A man comes up and asks, 'Did 
you confirm this little postmaster down at Athens, in 
Tennessee?' 'I can not inform you; I am bound to 
secrecy.' What an important secret that is, as to 
whether a postmaster to a little post-ofiice has been con- 
firmed, and whether I voted for his confirmation or not! 
Oh, what a great veil this is that is drawn between the 
Senator and the people in reference to a little post-ofiice! 
"In darker days, when the minds of men were not 
illumined as they are to-day by the common schools and 
by books which are found everywhere, you might fool 
somebody by talking about the secrets which you pos- 
sess ; but that time has passed. The people of this coun- 
try know as much as we do, and a great many of them 
who are in the humbler walks of life would make better 
Senators than many of us, doubtless. We find to-day in 
the Senate people difi'erent from those with which the 
Senate was filled once, when it was filled exclusively with 
lawyers, who supposed that they had all the wisdom of 
the world; that they controlled everything; that they 
wrote all the constitutions and drafted all the laws. 



324 OUR GREAT MEN. 

These things were then done in order to keep up the 
mystery and shroud their course of conduct in darkness, 
and cause the people to stand off in awe of them, and 
have them imagine a greatness that they could not 
fathom. 

"To-day we find it difi*erent. To-day, in the Senate 
Chamber, we find lawyers, we find miners, merchants, 
bankers, lumbermen, and men in the diff'erent avocations 
of life. The people elect their men according to what 
they think is their business qualification for the purpose 
of legislating to advance their interests. No longer is 
this mystery thrown around the aristocracy of this coun- 
try which once assembled for the purpose of blinding and 
keeping from the people that knowledge which they were 
entitled to have. 

"No, sir, this Government is growing; it is growing 
in republican ideas, in republican feelings; it is growing 
in the interest of the people. 

"Growth in the wrong direction must cease, and it 
will cease. The growth in this country, which has been 
in the direction of depriving men of their rights at the 
polls or their rights anywhere else, will have to cease. 
The growth calculated to oppress will be checked. I 
warn my friends here that the people of this country will 
know what you do. They will open these doors and 
they will look in upon you. They are entitled to; and 
until these doors are opened the people of this coun- 
try can not say that all have an opportunity of ascer- 
taining a full knowledge of the workings of his Gov- 
ernment ; and the man who is deprived of the knowledge 
he ought to have in order to be well informed is de- 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 



325 



prived to that extent of the privileges he ought to be 
permitted to enjoy. 

"It is only by degrees that liberty comes. It is 
only by degrees that liberty is repressed, and the degree 
that you repress the intelligence of the people as to the 
action of their representatives, to that extent you repress 
their liberties and the privileges they should enjoy. 

"Let the Senate turn its eye to the House of Lords 
in England, where power comes not from the people, 
where they are born with certain rights and privileges, 
where they are made lords without the consent of the 
people. To-day they are trembling and tottering, and 
the time will soon come when the House of Lords ii? 
England will be made by the people of England. 

" Let the Senate not pattern longer after the House 
of Lords; let the Senate not pattern longer after thfe 
star-chamber proceedings ; but let it, as a free, independ- 
ent body of the representatives of a free and independent 
people, open the doors and let the light, if any can ema- 
nate from the Senate, flash across the continent, that 
every intelligence in the land may understand how the 
duty as performed by the Senator is performed, whether 
in the direction of patriotic devotion to the interests of 
the country or not. In all these things let the country 
understand and know what is being done. Let the peo- 
ple be no longer misled ; let them no longer be made 
to believe that there is some mystery about secret ses- 
sions; let them be made no longer to believe that 
there is something transpiring here which would not 
transpire with open doors ; let them be made no longer 
to believe that they are not our equals. When w« 



326 OUR GREAT MEN. 

declare that the people of this country are our equals, 
that each and every man is the equal of each and every 
other man before the law, let not their representatives 
imagine that they are higher than the people, that they 
are better than the people, or that they have secrets of 
state which can not be imparted to the people who have 
trusted you. 

" You who are trusted by them can not trust them. Is 
that the rule, that the man trusted can not trust the men 
who trust him? Whenever I fail to trust the people of 
my State who have trusted me, who have given me their 
confidence as a legislator for them, whenever I shall come 
to the conclusion that I am so far above them that I can 
not trust them with what I do as a legislative or executive 
act, then I will come to the conclusion that I myself have 
become aristocratic, and that I am greater than those 
who made me what I am. Do not imagine yourselves 
greater than those who made you what you are ; you are 
not. Those who make Senators can unmake Senators; 
those who make Representatives can unmake Repre- 
sentatives. So, too, with the President and all power in 
this land ; the power that makes them can unmake them, 
and the power that makes them ought to unmake them 
if they have no confidence in that power. 

" Mr. President, open these doors, open these doors. 
Let the knowledge go out to the people. The people are 
outside ; they wish to see inside. Ah, Mr. President, we 
are on the inside now, but political life is short at best; 
we may soon be on the outside and have a desire to look 
inside. Take away this mystery ; stop this grand farce." 



Hon. HILERY a. HERBERT, 

OF ALABAMA. 




[ILERY A. HERBERT, of Montgomery, 
was born in Laurensville, South Carolina, 
the 10th of March, 1834. When twelve 
years of age he removed to Greenville, 
Butler County, Alabama. During 1853^54 he attended 
the University of Alabama, and in 1855-56 the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, after which he studied law, and was 
admitted to the Bar. He entered the Confederate Army 
as Captain, but was promoted to Colonel of the Eighth 
Alabama Volunteers. He was wounded at the battle of 
the Wilderness. For six years after the close of the 
war he practiced law at Greenville, Alabama; in 1872 
removing to Montgomery, which has since been the field 
of his usefulness. 

He has been a member of the United States House 
of Representatives since the Forty-fifth Congress, to 
which he was elected as a Democrat. On the Navy 
Appropriation Bill Mr. Herbert said: 

"Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Maine has made 
a very round assertion here, that we Democrats are 
responsible for the policy of appropriating for repairs 
only, and not for the building of ships. He says we 
inaugurated that policy. Now, let us look at the facts. 

(327) 



328 OUR GREAT MEN. 

I have turned very hastily to such of the appropriation 
bills for j^ast years as I have at hand ; and what is the 
result? I take the approj)riation for 1872, when the 
Republicans were in power, and I read the item for 
repairs, as follows: 

'"For preservation of vessels on the stocks and in 
ordinary; purchase of materials and stores of all kinds; 
labor in navy-yards and on foreign stations; j)reserva- 
tion of material ; purchase of tools ; wear, tear and 
rej^air of vessels afloat, and general maintenance of the 
navy; incidental expenses, advertising and foreign post- 
ages— $3, 500, 000., 

''Turning to 1873 I find, under the same head, an 
appropriation of $3,500,000. In 1874 I find |3,270,000, 
and in 1875, |3, 300, 000. All these are appropriations 
for repairs. "Now, turning to 1876, which I believe was 
the first year the Democrats had control here, I find the 
appropriations for repairs cut down to |1, 750,000, and 
so it goes on from that time down to the present. I 
have the book here containing all the appropriations, so 
that any gentleman who desires may look at the figures, 
and he will find that the appropriations under the head 
of repairs have steadily decreased under Democratic 
control until in the present bill, reported by the Com- 
mittee on Naval Aifairs, and just agreed ujoon here, the 
amount is only $980,000. So much for the facts. 

"I did not make the point that the amendment was 
not germane. The point I made was this : The Naval 
Committee and every other committee of this House has 
jurisdiction only over the matters confided to it by the 




HILERY A. HERBERT. 329 

rules. When the present rules were framed the Naval 
Committee was given jurisdiction over the ordinary 
appropriations for the naval service. That is to say, 
the regular annual appropriation bill for the Navy right- 
fully contains just exactly such matters as it has con- 
tained heretofore. There is no other way of construing 
the rule of the House which gives us jurisdiction over 
that matter, and leaves with the regular Appropriations 
Committee such jurisdiction as is not taken away from 
it. We must go to these bills as they existed hereto- 
fore and find out what they contained. The line between 
these different bills, as I have had occasion to say once 
before during the progress of this bill, is very arbitrary, 
and in many cases I can see no reason for it. Yet it 
exists; and when we undertake to decide what we have 
jurisdiction over, and what the Committee on Appropri- 
ations has jurisdiction over, there is no way of getting at 
it except by looking at the bills of past Congresses. 
When we look at these we find that appropriations for 
public buildings belong to the Sundry Civil Bill. 
****** 

" I want to state further to my colleague that it was 
understood by the members of our committee — at least 
by those who were present when this question of the 
Naval Observatory was considered — that- the Observa- 
tory would be ruled out on a point of order if the point 
were made ; but, as we thought it ought to be erected, 
we put the provision into the bill to take its chances, 
and it seems to have run the gauntlet. That, however, 
does not show that the point of order might not have 
been made against it." 



JAMES L. PUGH, 



OF ALABAMA. 




AMES L. PUGH, of Eufaula, was born in 
Burke County, Greorgia, December 12th, 
1820. When he was four years of age the 
family moved to Alabama, where he has 
since resided. 

He received an academic education partly in Georgia 
and partly in the State of his adoption. After devoting 
some time to his law studies he was admitted to the 
Bar in 1841, at the early age of twenty-one. 

Beautiful Eufaula, situated on the bluffs above the 
Chattahoochee, and just across the river from the south- 
western border of Georgia, was chosen as his future 
home, and where he has ever since practiced law when 
not engaged with public duties. He is regarded as one 
of Alabama's ablest men. 

In 1848 he was a member of the Electoral College 
when Taylor was elected, and in 1856, when Buchanan 
was elected to the Presidency. In 1876, again a State 
Elector, Mr. Pugh cast his vote for Tilden. 

Mr. Pugh was elected a member of the United States 
Congress in 1859; about a year later, when Alabama 
ordained to secede from the Union, he resigned his seat 

(330) 




fe' ■&•">'■ '■ ■ - ■^' ■»..'.;i!»,i»>.^,x*i5??> .■ "^_v^iS\Sg: 







JAMES L. PUGH. 333 

in the Thirty-sixth Congress to follow the leadership of 
his State. He at once joined the Eufaula Rifles, in the 
First Alabama Regiment, as a private ; but left the bat- 
tle-field for legislative halls, when elected, that same year, 
to the Confederate Congress, where he served till the 
surrender, which closed the career of that body. 

After the war he resumed the practice of his pro- 
fession in Eufaula. The law firm of Pugh, Bullock & 
Buford is among the first of the State. He was Presi- 
dent of the State Democratic Convention in 1874, and 
was a prominent member of the State Constitutional 
Convention in 1875. In 1880 Mr. George S. Houston, 
United States Senator from Alabama, died, leaving an 
unexpired term of five years. Mr. Pugh was elected to 
fill the vacancy, and has since retained the position ; the 
people recognizing his fitness for the office he holds. 

One of Mr. Pugh's best efforts, we think, was made in 
answer to Mr. Edmunds' speech upon the resolutions 
condemning the Attorney-General for not furnishing 
papers in regard to the suspension of a certain officer, 
and was in defense of the Attorney-General and the 
Administration. Mr. Pugh said: 

"The question of the right of the Senate to call on 
the President for any information in his possession 
relating to the exercise of his power of removal is wholly 
irrelevant to the question now before the Senate on the 
resolution of the Senator from Louisiana, and I object 
to dragging before the Senate and the country a discus- 
sion of the right of the Senate to make such a call upon 
the President or any member of his Cabinet for informa- 
tion within his own knowledge, or contained in any of the 



T5*fl 



334 OUR GREAT MEN. 

papers in his possession relating to the exercise of a 
power that belongs exclusively to him under the Consti- 
tution, and not to the Senate. 

" The right of the Senate to call upon the President, 
or any member of his Cabinet, for information to enable 
them to prosecute an inquiry, or to exercise a power that 
they do not possess under the Constitution, is one thing. 
The right of the Senate, as part of the law-making power 
of the country, to ask for information of the President, or 
of any member of his Cabinet, is conferred expressly by 
Section 248 of the Revised Statutes. In that section the 
right is given to either House to call on the Secretary of 
the Treasury for any documents or public records in his 
possession relating to matters in his Department of pub- 
lic concern, or relating to the discharge of his official 
duty. That statute draws clearly the distinction upon 
which I rely, in the resolution that I presented to the 
Senate, between a call by the Senate upon the President 
or any member of his Cabinet for information in the pos- 
session of either, or public records or public documents^ 
in the possession of either. The right of the Senate to 
make this call for the purpose of informing them, so that 
they can wisely and properly exercise their legislative 
powers, is conferred expressly by Section 248, and that 
statute upon its face shows that the power conferred 
there upon either House was a power to be exercised by 
either House for the purpose of enabling it to discharge 
its duties in reference to legislation. 

" But you can not construe that statute, or any other, 
or any public law, or the Constitution, so as to confer 
the right upon the Senate to call for information from 



I 



JAMES L. PUGH. 335 

the pre^sideiit concerning matters belonging exclusively 
to him as the chief executive officer of the country. 
Such a right can not be found in any statute or in any 
public law, or in the Constitution of the country, and 
that statute, Section 248, clearly shows that the power 
conferred there is a power conferred upon either House 
to discharge its duties in the preparation qf public laws 
relating to the duties of any public officer, or to legislate 
to promote the public service of the country. 

"Allow me to add that the call you make upon the 
President, or the call that you make upon any officer of 
the Cabinet, is for public documents. You do not claim 
that the Senate can call upon him for any other than 
public documents or public papers. The character of 
those documents and records determines the right of the 
Senate to their possession. The character of those public 
documents decides whether the Senate has the right to call 
for them. The use that the Senate intends to make of 
them determines their right to make the call. Who is 
to be the judge of the character of those documents, 
whether they are public or private? Who is to be the 
judge of whether those documents or records, or the 
information in the possession of the President or any 
member of his Cabinet, is such as the Senate has the 
right to call for? Some one must have the power to 
determine that question, and there can not be any impro- 
priety in conferring the right upon the President or any 
member of the Cabinet to determine whether the docu- 
ments and the records are of the character that gives 
the Senate the right to make the call for them to use 
them in the exercise of their legislative power." 



V^A 



33G OUR GREAT MEN. 

Some remarks by Mr. Pugh on the Educational bill 
are here given : 

" I desire to correct the statement of the Senator 
from Kansas, that it was my j^urpose to take the floor to 
make a speech. I stated distinctly that I had no speech 
to make, but I felt it my duty as a member of the com- 
mittee to make a statement to the Senate of the connec- 
tion I have with this bill. I voted for it on its passage 
by the Senate in the Forty-seventh Congress in obedience 
to the instruction of my Legislature, and I desire to state 
my connection with the j^reparation of the bill as a mem- 
ber of the Committee on Education and Labor. My 
colleague [Mr. Morgan] alluded to the fact that I claimed 
a part of the paternity of the bill with the chairman of 
the committee, and I want to make an explanation of 
what connection I had with the ^preparation of it. That is 
the sum and substance of the statement I wish to make. 

" I want to say to the Senate that the bill now before 
it, in its machinery, conforms in substance and in prin- 
ciple with the Morrill bill, and that the -psivt I took in 
the preparation of the bill now before the Senate was to 
make the machinery of it conform to the Morrill bill, 
which had passed the Senate by a vote of forty-one to 
six. Among the supporters of that bill were my col- 
league and the Senator from Texas [Mr. Maxey], who 
has just concluded his speech. I wish to call attention 
to two sections in the Morrill bill which will show that 
in its machinery it conforms strictly to the machinery of 
thfe bHl now before the Senate as reported by the Com- 
mittee on Education and Labor. 

VI* ^F ^F ^F ^r ^F 



JAMES L. rUGH. 337 

" The difference between the Morrill bill and the bill 
now before the Senate, known as the Blair bill, is that 
in the Blair bill the report is made by the Governor of 
the State directly to the Secretary of the Interior, w^hile 
the Morrill bill required the subordinate officer, the 
school officer having charge of the school fund, to make 
the report to the Commissioner of Education, a subordi- 
nate officer in the Interior Department, the head of the 
Bureau of Education. The change in the Blair bill is 
that the Governor makes the report instead of his sub- 
ordinate, and he makes it to the Secretary of the Interior 
instead of to the Commissioner of Education, the chief 
of the Bureau of Education. 

****** 

"I intended to notice the difference in the funds 
appropriated by the Morrill bill and the Blair bill. In 
reference to the statement of the Senator as to the action 
of the Committee on Education and Labor upon his bill, 
I desire to say that at the time his bill was rejDorted by 
me to the Senate it was the distinct understanding that 
it should not be considered before the Senate took action 
upon the Blair bill, for the reason that by running the 
two together it might interfere with the success of the 
Blair bill ; that the enemies of the bill might undertake 
to encumber its passage or embarrass it in some way by 
having those two bills running together in the Senate; 
and for that reason the Committee on Education and 
Labor instructed me to withhold that bill and not to 
press action upon it until after the final disposition of 
the Blair bill. That was in the last Congress. 

"It is true that the Morrill bill appropriated the 



338 OUR GREAT MEN. 

proceeds of the sales of the public lands, and that is 
made the ground of a difference as to the power of Con- 
gress to make the appropriation. So far as I am con- 
cerned, I do not enter into a discussion of that question. 
I never could see, as a question of power, what right 
Congress had to dispose of money in the Treasury aris- 
ing from the sale of public lands different from its power 
to dispose of money in the Treasury collected there from 
taxation. It is a subtlety that my mind can not com- 
prehend; it is a difference that my mind is too dull to 
take in and see any substance in. President Pierce was 
unable to see it. He said there was no difference in 
substance between the power of Congress to appropriate 
money in the Treasury arising from taxation and to 
appropriate money in the Treasury arising from the sales 
of public lands. Senator Clay, of Alabama, while he 
was in the Senate, made one of the ablest speeches I 
ever read upon that subject, in which he demonstrates to 
my mind that there was, and could be, no difference in 
the power of Congress to appropriate the proceeds of the 
public lands to educational pur^^oses and the power of 
Congress to appropriate money arising from taxation. 

" But, Mr. President, the Morrill bill did not stop at 
an appropriation of the proceeds of the public lands. It 
appropriated the net proceeds arising from patents, which, 
according to my recollection, amount to some two mill- 
ions a year. 

"I do not remember what the amount is, but the prin- 
ciple for which I contend is the same on one hundred dol- 
lars or one hundred million dollars. The money arising 



JAMES L. PUGH. 339 

from patents is not a trust fund like the public-land 
fund, upon which some of the opponents of this bill 
undertake to explain the difference between the bill 
known as the Morrill bill and the one now before the 
Senate. The Morrill bill appropriated whatever money 
there might be arising from patents to educational uses, 
and it is immaterial to the question of power whether 
the sum arising from patents is one amount or another. 
****** 

" It is not my purpose to go into the use that has 
been made of the power of Congress to make appropri- 
ations for different subjects, the only source of power 
being the same as is exercised in the passage of this 
bill. My colleague a short time ago offered an amend- 
ment to an appropriation bill, by which he projDosed to 
have money appropriated to arrest the ravages of the 
caterpillar. Five thousand dollars was appropriated, 
and the use that was made of it was to investigate the 
devastations of the cotton-worm. I can not see that 
Congress can have the power to arrest the ravages of 
caterpillars in localities in certain States and not have 
the power to arrest the ravages of ignorance. One is a 
local evil: the other is a national peril." 



31 



^: 



Hon. JOHN C. SPOONER, 



OF WISCONSIN. 




OHIS" C. SPOONER, of Hudson, is a native 
of Lawrenceburg, Dearborn County, Indi- 
ana. In June of 1859 lie removed with his 
parents to Wisconsin, locating in Madison. 
He is a graduate of the State University, where he took 
his degree in 1864. He served during the war as private 
in Company D, Fortieth Regiment, and Captain of Com- 
pany A, Fiftieth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers, and 
at the close of the war had attained the rank of Major. 

He was private secretary of Grovernor Lucius Fair- 
child, of Wisconsin. In 1857 he was admitted to the 
Bar, and was Assistant Attorney-General of Wisconsin 
until 1870. Then removing to Hudson, he has since been 
actively engaged with his professional duties. In 1872 
he was elected to the Assembly. He is an honored 
member of the Board of Regents of the Wisconsin 
University. 

He was elected to the United States Senate as a Re- 
publican, and took his seat the 4th of March, 1885. 

In his eulogy on Thomas A. Hendricks Mr. Spooner 
said : 

" He was a man of strong convictions, and he had 

(340) 



JOHN C. SPOONER. 341 

little respect for those who were otherwise. He was in 
no sense or way a trimmer in politics, although the con- 
trary has been asserted of him. No public man ever 
lived to whom the favor and approval of the masses were 
sweeter than they were to Mr. Hendricks. Few public 
men ever lived whose course evoked bitterer criticisms 
from his opponents than did his at times. The fact that 
he preferred to stem the tide of popular sentiment rather 
than to walk the easy open way to popular favor is at 
least conclusive of the strength of his convictions. 

"It had not long before his death become fashionable 
in some quarters to speak of him as a 'spoilsman.' If 
by this was meant that he desired the bestowal of office 
as a mere reward for party service upon unfit men, or in 
violation of existing law, I believe, from conversation 
with him upon the subject, that the accusation was utterly 
groundless. 

"Mr. Hendricks was heart and soul a Democrat. He 
thoroughly believed in his party and in its principles. 
Indeed, I think if he might give direction to our words 
to-day he would bid us say of him that he was a partisan 
Democrat. He rightly thought that politics should be a 
matter of conviction, and that every man of firm political 
faith owed it to himself and to the country to be a parti- 
san, in this, at least, that he should labor earnestly, and 
in all fit ways best suited to his mental make-up and to 
his surroundings, to promote the success of the principles 
in which he believed. To him no political partisanship, 
honorable in its methods, was offensive. He fully real- 
ized the value of organization. He knew that no great 
charity ever could be administered without it, and that 



342 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the command laid upon the apostles, ' Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the Gosj^el to every creature,' can not 
be efficiently obeyed without organized efforts and parti- 
san service. He recognized the plain necessity for party 
organization, and in the party he saw only the instrumen- 
tality through which, and through which alone, might be 
wrought out the triumj^h of his principles. 

* * * * * ♦ 

"As an orator he was persuasive and attractive. 
There was a quality in his voice and a charm in his 
manner which gave him command of his audience. 

"He was a genial, gracious, kindly gentleman, who 
treated all who came within the circle of his influence, 
rich or poor, exalted or lowly, with the same rare and 
exquisite courtesy. 

" To him life's sun has set. For him life's cares are 
ended. He is, in the words borne upon his dying breath, 
'free at last.' 

"There is, Mr. President, a melancholy comfort in 
the manner of his death. He died as one might wish to 
die who was well prepared to die. In his own home, in 
the midst of the friends and neighbors of many years, 
at the capital of the State which loved him and which 
he loved, in the tender care of her who was nearest and 
dearest, without premonition or pain of parting, * God's 
finger touched him, and he slept.' " 



Hon. WILLIAM R. MORRISON, 

OF ILLINOIS. 




ILLIAM R. MORRISON, of Waterloo, 
Representative in Congress from the Eigh- 
teenth Congressional District of Illinois, 
was born in Monroe County, of that State, 
September 14th, 1825. He received his education in the 
common schools of the neighborhood, and at McKendree 
College, Illinois. He studied law, and in due time was 
admitted to practice. For a time he held the position of 
clerk of the Circuit Court. He was a member of the 
House of Representatives of Illinois four terms, during 
one of which he served as Speaker. He was elected to 
the Thirty-eighth, Forty-third, Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, 
Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Congresses, 
and re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a Democrat. 
Mr. Morrison is the leader of the Democracy on the 
floor of the House. He is a strong tariif reformer, and 
the leader of that element in the Democratic party. Mr. 
Morrison said, on the Union Pacific Railroad bill : 

"The Union Pacific Railroad, or systems of railroads, 
owes the United States most of a hundred millions of dol- 
lars, counting in the sixty-four millions of bonds guaranteed, 
which, to all appearances, we shall be compelled to pay. 

(343) 



344 OUR GREAT MEN. 

After one attemi^t by the Thurman Act to compel the 
road to keep its contract and save the Government harm- 
less, the amount of indebtedness to the Grovernment con- 
tinues to increase. In fact, we have a hard bargain with 
the railroad company, one in which the company, or com- 
panies, fall further short of their engagements each suc- 
ceeding year. 

"This bill is intended to fund, extend the time of pay- 
ment, and increase the security for the final payment of 
the debt guaranteed by the Government. Were I assured 
the bill would accomplish its purj^ose I would vote for it, 
and it may be my own fault that I do not have that assur- 
ance, for I have confidence in both the intelligence and the 
l^urpose of the committee from which the bill comes. 

" The corporation, or men composing it, availed them- 
selves of what turned out to be an enormous grant, built 
the road, squeezed all there was in it into their own pock- 
its ; in fact, left it something of a wreck in the hands of 
men for the most part in no way responsible for the mon- 
strous frauds practiced by their predecessors on the Gov- 
ernment and the people. Our duty is now to make the 
most we can out of what is left — to deal rightly with the 
situation as we find it. 

"In the discussion much has been said of the bad bar- 
gain and alleged bad faith of the legislation of 1864 on 
this subject. Well, sir, viewed from this stand-point, it 
was a bad or hard bargain. If my colleague and the gen- 
tleman from Iowa had been here then, and as wise as they 
are now, twenty-two years later, they probably would not 
have been parties to its ratification. They talk as if they 
believed we had given away a first-mortgage lien upon a 



WILLIAM E. MORRISOJ^. 345 

railroad. Wliy, sir, in 1862, a grant had been made to cer- 
tain parties ; yes, to any parties or anybody who woukl build 
a railroad to California and tie it fast on to the Union. 
I^obody under that legislation put a spade in the ground 
or built any road. Two years afterward, and after we had 
tried in vain to obtain the building of the road under the 
first grant, it became apparent to all that the capital of the 
country would not take the risk of the enterprise. It 
substantially declared the capital of the country would 
not stand second; if you, the representatives of the j^eo- 
ple, want the railroad built the Government must take 
the second place and the first risk." 

The following is an argument by Mr. Morrison on the 
tariff: 

"Taxes by duties, excises, or in whatever form laid, 
are rightly laid and collected to pay the public debt and 
the expenses of good government. The encouragement or 
protection which manufacturers and all other industries 
receive from taxation they rightly receive as the result of 
taxes so laid and collected ; and the encouragement or pro- 
tection thus afforded is ample for the prosperity of all our 
industries, and will best provide for the general welfare 
of the United States. So it was substantially declared at 
Saint Louis in 1876, and Cincinnati in 1880, simply this: 
That our tariff policy must be governed more by a system 
of equations, and influenced less by cupidity. 

" When theMorrill tariff of 1861 was considered, Sen- 
ator Sherman, then a member of the House, said : 

"'I vote for the Senate amendments, and have voted 
for this bill as a revenue measure simply.' 

"Mr. Morrill said: 



346 OUR GREAT MEN. 

'"The principles upon which the bill is founded do 
not necessarily raise the question of protection. * * * 
The highest duties fixed upon have been so fixed more 
with a view to revenue than jorotection, and would place 
our people on a level of fair competition with the rest of 
the world.' 

"It would j)lace them on this level because, under the 
revenue tariifs of 1846, 1857 and former tariifs, Mr. 
Morrill said : 

"'We have made more rapid strides in cheapening 
manufactures, and therefore lessening the necessity for 
incidental j^rotection, than ever England herself made in 
any equal period of time.' 

"Mr. Chairman, the duties fixed by the Morrill tariif 
have been increased and supj^lemented with others double 
in form and double in rate. Twenty years have been 
added in the process of cheapening manufactures, and 
therefore lessening the necessity for 'incidental protec- 
tion.' The friends of tariif reform now demand such 
reduction as will leave the average rates as high as those 
fixed by the Morrill tariif. What answer is made to this 
most reasonable demand? The answer is that we are 
revolutionists ; that we would at once destroy the manu- 
facturing interests of the country and undo the policy of 
its earlier and better statesmanship. The answer is a 
shallow pretense which can deceive no one. 

"The earlier statesmen of the country were not all of 
one opinion as to the best methods for diversifying its 
industry and increasing the productive power of its people. 
Impelled by patriotic duty to provide a national revenue, 
something was often yielded by them to that protective 



WILLIAM R. MORRISON. 347 

selfishness which since then has obtained so much. But 
that they gave assent and support to the protective policy 
as now advocated and practiced is mere assertion, and 
finds no justification in history and none in fact. Those 
who shaped our institutions and made them republican in 
form were scarcely less mindful of the injustice and 
oppression of trade restrictions than of restraints on their 
liberties. In the first Congressional debate Mr. Madison 
said : 

"'I am myself the friend of a very free system of 
commerce, and hold it as a truth that commercial shackles 
are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic. * * * 
All are benefited by exchange, and the less the exchange 
is cramped by Grovernment the greater are the proportions 
of benefit to each. The same argument holds good 
between nation and nation and between parts of the same 
nation.' 

"In his first message Mr. Jefi^erson said: 
"'Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and naviga- 
tion, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriv- 
ing when left most free to individual enter23rise. Protec- 
tion from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes 
be reasonably interposed.' 

" In his last annual message President Monroe said : 
" ' The principles upon which the commercial policy of 
the United States is founded are to be traced to an early 
period. This policy was free and equal reciprocity. That 
l^rinciple has pervaded all the acts of Congress and all 
negotiations of the Executive on the subject.' 

"And such, Mr. Chairman, were .the views of General 
Jackson, Mr. Benton and, at one time, of Mr. Webster. 



348 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



"The tariff convention of 1831, assembled in IS'ew 
York, was quite as able, and at least as honest in the 
exj)ression of its purposes, as similar conventions of more 
recent date. That convention said of the men who formed 
the Governnient that 'they offered free trade to all 
nations, but the nations with one accord rejected it.' 

"That convention conceded that all our laws up to 
that time restricting commerce were no part of an orig- 
inal policy, but countervailing measures to compensate for 
regulations and restrictions on our shij)s and products by 
nations which had rejected our offers of free commerce. 

" JSTow, sir, other nations have made some advance 
toward that freedom of commerce and exchange to which 
our first statesmen invited all nations a century ago. We 
stay a century behind, and are asked to retreat. 

"To show how the right to exchange products was 
valued in the early history of the country, I need do no 
more than point to the sacrifices made to secure it. To 
secure this, New England voted in the convention which 
framed the Constitution that persons might be imported 
for twenty years and sold into slavery. And yet, such 
was the hatred of New England for slavery that, before 
another twenty years expired, she began to hedge it about 
with a view to its ultimate extinction. Later on, to secure 
a profitable foreign traffic, she insisted upon a low revenue 
tariff only on Jamaica molasses as a raw material for 
making rum, and this, too, with an aversion to intemj)er- 
ance equal to her hatred of slavery. There is much in 
history which justifies the belief that rum was exchanged 
for the persons sold into slavery. 

"Mr. Clay, the credited father of the American sys- 






i\ 



WILLIAM K. MOEKISON. 349 

tern, was the author of a bill as late as 1833, approved by 
General Jackson, reducing the highest duties to twenty 
per cent. The professed adherents of Mr. Clay's policy 
in this House will not permit a vote on a bill to reduce 
duties to fifty per cent. If the proposed commission 
reports a bill in which the highest duties do not more 
than double Mr. Clay's, it will find its Congressional cem- 
etery in the Ways and Means Committee, and never 
receive the consideration of this House. As late as 1842 
Mr. Clay said : 

"' I am not advocating the revival of a high protective 
tariff. I am for giving the country a revenue which may 
provide for the economical wants of the Government and 
at the same time give an incidental protection.' 

" Thus it will be seen that this great tariff leader made 
revenue the paramount object of a tariff. 

"Mr. Hamilton is called in this debate 'after Burke, 
the profoundest statesman of his age.' His arguments 
favoring the protection of manufactures, it is said, were 
and remain unanswerable. Most of the duties proposed 
by Mr. Hamilton were below revenue-tariff rates, many 
times less than the present rates. These he proposed to 
supplement with bounties, to be paid from the public 
treasury. He knew what protection meant, and offered it 
in the simplest form. He knew it meant then what it 
means now: bounty to the manufacturer. His methods 
and most of his arguments have gone into disuse. His 
professed followers look in vain to anything he said or did 
in support of the argument which is to-day their chief 
reliance. He never advocated protection as a means of 
increasing the wages of labor. That is an invention not 



350 OUR GREAT MEN. 

in use in his time. Whatever erroneous views he enter- 
tained, he practiced no indirection to make them accepta- 
ble to otliers. 

"The form of government proposed by Mr. Hamilton 
was not adopted, and is not the one under which we live. 
He said in the convention to form the Constitution : 

" 'All communities divide themselves into the few and 
the many; * * * the rich and well-born * * * 
and the mass of the people. The people are turbulent 
and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. 
Give, therefore, the first class — the rich and well-born — a 
distinct, permanent share in the Government. They will 
check the unsteadiness of the second — the mass of the 
people — and * * * will ever maintain good govern- 
ment. Nothing but a permanent body can check the 
imprudence of democracy.' 

" Thus it will be seen that, great as Mr. Hamilton was, 
he believed none but the few he called the rich and well- 
born capable of governing and maintaining good govern- 
ment. His form of government was rejected; but are we 
not drifting to its substance ? How else are we to account 
for the growing popularity of his opinions ? No one knew 
better than he that laboring men are never legislated into 
his governing class, and that men do not attain riches 
from the labor of their own hands, but from the profits of 
the labor of other men. The hardship of this truth is 
not helped, but aggravated, by tariffs and by any and 
every system professedly in the interest of any class. The 
real friends of labor never attempt such legislation but 
from mistaken views. In every race for legislative bene- 
fits labor obtains less, capital more than its share. Indi- 



WILLIAM K. MORRISON, 351 

vidual enterprise and the legitimate accumulation of cap- 
ital can not be interfered with ; but legislation which helps 
an unjust distribution of j)roperty or an unfair division of 
the jDroceeds of labor is a great public wrong. Aside from 
land, the value of which depends upon the use made of it, 
all the capital or the savings of labor in the richest State 
never exceeds three years' consumption, and as to food we 
are always nearer than a year to starvation. The earn- 
ings of both capital and labor must be paid from their 
joint j)roduct. When capital takes too much, labor 
receives too little. Ofiicial statistics show^ that, under this 
system, in many industries capital takes to itself four 
times the earnings of its ordinary employment, the rates 
of interest, and leaves to labor less than its legitimate 
earnings. 

"If Mr. Hamilton desired to foster and perj^etuate 
divisions in society and the fortunes of men, the protective 
policy was wisely selected for the purpose. That I do not 
misjudge the effect, if not the purpose, of the system now 
so strangely insisted upon, attention is called to the argu- 
ment upon which it is supported where laboring men have 
no votes: 

'"Sir Leonard Tilley, the Canadian Minister of 
Finance, argues that it is an excellent feature of the new 
tariff policy in the Dominion; that it helps a few men to 
build colossal fortunes, for those enjoying them will be 
sure to expend a large percentage of their incoming mill- 
ions in various forms of luxury, which will give employ- 
ment to many.' 

"How, sir, will the Canadian minister's high tariff 
help a few men to build up colossal fortunes to spend in 



352 . OUR GEEAT MEN, 

luxury and to employ many, unless these few take more 
than they give back? If a few take more from than 
they return to the many by means of a j^rotective tariif, 
whom does it protect and benefit? These questions the 
nine wise men of the tariff commission will never answer. 
♦ **»«»♦ 

"In 1857 the revenue was excessive and the tariif was 
reduced. Financial depression came in that year, and the 
revenues fell short of the average ordinary expenditure of 
the four previous years. And so under the present tariff, 
with financial depression in 1877 and 1878, the revenues 
fell below the average expenditure of the four previous 
years, exclusive of all payments on account of the public 
debt and pensions. Protectionists will never cease ex- 
plaining how low the tariff Avas, the cause of the financial 
embarrassment in 1857 to 1859, and how the high tariff 
was not the cause of that from 1873 to 1878. Neither 
nations nor men are in great danger of financial distress 
for want of being taxed, and exactly how low taxes and 
low duties brought financial embarrassment to both in the 
Democratic era, ending in 1860, has never been satisfac- 
torily explained. The most j^lausible theory would seem 
to be one advanced in this debate, that under a low tariff 
our markets are made a dumping-ground for England's 
surplus, and our j^eople buy themselves poor. This is 
good enough for theory, but has no fact to support it. In 
1860, and previous years, the importations were fifteen per 
cent, (to the person) less than in 1880. This dumping- 
ground argument is a fallacy, but then it is as true as any 
other used for the same purpose. 

"In the conditions following the war, and which were 



WILLIAM E. MORRISON. 353 

probably inevitable, our bonds went abroad, prices were 
inflated, importations were large. We went above our 
financial level, and came down in the crash of 1873. 
Having a country of endless resources and a people of 
matchless industrial energy and skill, we recovered in six 
years, in 1879. With less tariff and less taxes we could 
have recovered sooner. It may be stated uj)on the author- 
ity of the honorable Chairman that half the decade from 
1870 to 1880 was a time of universal dej)ression and 
despondency, when failure upon failure of the most expe- 
rienced iron-masters was announced from day to day, 
with wages so low that workers in iron and their fam- 
ilies could scarcely escape destitution and starvation, and 
yet history will correctly transmit that as an era of sub- 
stantial and wonderful national progress. 

" The condition of the country from 1873 to 1879 was 
much the same as 1857 to 1859. Banking with no money 
to bank on, and the discovery and mining of gold were 
followed by increased prices and large importations, resultr 
ing in the same financial condition in 1857 which fol- 
lowed in 1873. The mischief was done in the former 
period, before the reduction of the tariff in 1857, as it was 
in the later period before 1873 — the effect came afterward. 
Congress could have done in 1857 as the gentleman from 
Iowa and the honorable Chairman did in 1873 — increased 
the tariff in the interest of their already protected friends, 
with loss of revenue to the Government and increased 
cost of living to the people. In 1857 Congress waited for 
that recovery which was sure to come, and did come in 
1860. In growth of population, in the increase of wealth 
and in the wages of labor, in the abundance of harvests. 



354 OUE GEEAT MEN. 

in the industry, contentment and happiness of the people, 
in all that attends the progress of a great country, the 
period from 1850 to 1860 may challenge comparison with 
any period in the history of this or any other country. 
These are enduring facts not to be changed by the want 
of candor to admit them. 

" California, Nevada, Arizona, ]N"ew Mexico, and part of 
Colorado, are but one of the rich treasures of the so-styled 
' Democratic era of free trade.' Without its statesmanship 
their untold wealth of mine and field would be the product 
of a neighboring nation, with impassable wall of protective 
duties forbidding its exchange for our high-priced goods. 
Their annual yield of gold and silver far exceeds the 
wages of all our workers in iron and steel. Colorado's 
population added to those now in manufacturing industries 
would make all the goods the country can consume. In 
fact, it is now said by intelligent iron-masters that the iron 
and steel industry can supply the demand of the whole 
country ; and the same is true of the cotton and woolen 
industries ; and which way shall we now lay our course ? 

"Protesting, but four years ago, against modification of 
the taritf as it exists to-day, the honorable chairman [Judge 
Kelley] said : 

" ' The loom and si^indle stand still. * * * The 
fires are out in the forge, the captains of industry by thou- 
sands are passing into bankruptcy, and the laboring people 
into want, if not into absolute pauperism.' 

"Now himself and associates insist this tariff must be 
maintained to j^revent the fires going out in the forge and 
to save the laboring people from want. This they assert 
will be the result to the iron industry in Ohio and through- 



WILLIAM R. MORRISON, 355 

out the country unless this tariff is continued ' to protect 
labor.' 

" In the Hocking Valley, the chief iron region of Ohio, 
iron is produced for twelve dollars per ton. My colleague 
on the committee, Mr. Carlisle, has already shown by the 
census report that the total amount paid for wages to make 
a ton of iron, including that paid for mining the ore, was 
less than eight dollars. Iron can not be carried from the 
furnace to and across the sea, and from the sea to Ohio, 
for eight dollars ; and this sum, which exceeds all the 
wages paid for making iron in Ohio, the imj)orter must 
pay if he pays no revenue duty before he comes in com- 
petition with Ohio iron. Hence it will be seen that it is 
not labor protectionists would protect. Manufacturers di- 
versify industry and greatly augment its productive power, 
but the argument on which the necessity for protection is 
based makes them helpless infants always. If iron can 
not be manufactured at a profit in Ohio, with a protecting 
sea giving it eight dollars over its competitors without any 
protecting duty, it can not be sold at a profit in a foreign 
market to reach which it must pay eight dollars. The 
cost of importation is always so considerable as to give our 
own manufacturers greatly the advantage in our own mar- 
kets, aside from the additional advantage necessarily re- 
sulting from a revenue tariff. And whatever can not be 
sold with profit in our own markets without a duty, either 
for revenue or protection, can not be profitably sold in any 
other country. If we must protect our manufactures 
against foreign competition in our own markets, they are 
forever excluded from foreign markets where they are un- 
protected. 

22 



356 OUR GREAT MEN. 

"If this be true, then, with all our superior intelli- 
gence and skill, with our gain from fertile soil, genial cli- 
mate, iron and coal all over the land and nearly on the 
surface, this 50,000,000 of people can not contribute one 
piece of handiwork to the wants of their fellow-men in any 
country but their own, and here we must have a tariff to 
prevent our being supplied cheaper than we can supply 
ourselves. 

"With what sincerity can it be said that the manufac- 
turing industries of the country will be either destroyed 
or injuriously affected if the present tariff is not main- 
tained, and especially if it is reduced to a revenue basis ? 
To pay the war debt, including pensions, will require 
^,000,000,000, and the ordinary expenditures are and will 
continue to be greater in proportion to population than in 
the revenue-tariff period. Looking to the opportunity these 
vast sums afford for gathering taxes for revenue only, why 
should protectionists refuse to be comforted ? They admit 
in this debate for the first time that in all else but the cost 
of labor we can manufacture and compete with all the 
world, but still insist that we must protect to compensate 
for the difference in the wages of labor. 

"Under the revenue tariff of 1846 the duty on iron 
was thirty per cent. The tariff of 1857, for which Ste- 
phen A. Douglas, Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson 
voted, reduced it to twenty-four per cent. This tariff and 
the Morrill tariff of 1861 were approved by Mr. Buchanan, 
a protectionist, and it is this twenty-four per cent, tariff 
which is always produced as a witness that a revenue 
tariff will destroy the iron industry in Ohio and through- 
out the country. Yet it appears in the census statement 



WILLIAM R. MORRISON. 357 

(1) that the total wages paid for labor in iron and steel 
mills and factories was less than nineteen per cent., or 
nineteen dollars for every one hundred dollars' worth of 
iron and steel made ; under a twenty-four per cent, tariff 
the importer must pay twenty-four dollars to import iron 
valued at one hundred dollars, or five dollars more than 
all the wages paid to produce the home-made iron. The 
total wages paid in all our iron mines and works in the 
census year was 165,000,000 ; the product was 4,000,000 
tons. The freight on a like quantity from the works in 
Great Britain to the sea, thence to the United States, 
thence to the center of population, is at least eight dollars 
per ton, or $32,000,000. Suppose rates of wages in Great 
Britain are but half the rates here, this cost in freight 
alone compensates the difference. 

" The value of our whole iron and steel product in the 
census year was |296,557,685. Suppose a twenty-four per 
cent, revenue tariff, as low as that of 1857, when we had 
no war debt or pension list, was adopted. The twenty-four 
per cent, duty to be paid to import what we make would 
be $71,000,000. That is to say, the importer, under a 
twenty-four per cent, duty, before he comes into compe- 
tition with our iron and steel, must pay $71,000,000, or 
$6,000,000 more than all the wages paid for the whole iron 
and steel product in the United States. The people who 
consumed the iron and steel product of 1880 could have 
imported it, paid all the wages paid in iron works and 
mines, and saved $6,000,000, while the workers would have 
been left free to follow other pursuits. 

"Two years ago the manufacturers appeared before the 
committee to resist any reduction of the twenty-eight dol- 



358 OUR GREAT MEN. 

lar duty on steel rails. One of the ablest of them, Mr. 
Wharton, who never understates anything which will help 
his interests, stated that the difference in the cost of 
making steel rails in this country and in England does 
not exceed twenty-five per cent. When it was proposed to 
fix the duty at fifteen dollars per ton, which was at least 
fifty i^er cent, on the foreign cost, it was resisted by Mr. 
Wharton, by the American Iron and Steel Association, 
and by the friends of protection here and everywhere, as 
an effort to destroy our industries. The bill introduced 
by me in the Forty-fourth Congress reduced duties on 
cotton goods to the average rate of thirty per cent. That 
was called a tariff for revenue only, and those who seek to 
continue the present tariff opposed it under the pretense 
that it did not sufficiently protect labor and would destroy 
the cotton industry. The census shows that all the wages 
paid in cotton mills in 1880 were less than twenty-three 
per cent., or less than twenty-three dollars for every one 
hundred dollars of cotton goods made. Raw cotton is the 
article of chief value in cotton goods ; in all the heavier 
and coarser goods it is more than half the value, but 
not near so much on finer and lighter goods. 

"The foreign manufacturer buys our cotton, two- thirds 
of all we grow, carries it to and over the sea, to the mill, 
and back again to our people when made into cloth, and 
l^ays, under a thirty j)er cent, duty, thirty dollars for every 
one hundred dollars' worth of cloth returned. And this 
we are asked to believe would destroy our cotton indus- 
tries. Not only does the foreign manufacturer come to us 
for cotton, but he must go to Iowa, the center of the grain- 
growing and provision-producing region, a thousand miles 



WILLIAM R. MORRISON. 359 

from the sea, for food. While the chosen representatives 
of cotton industries were here protesting against a reduc- 
tion of duties, asserting that the present high tariff must 
be continued to protect them or they would be crushed out 
and perish in our own markets, our cotton goods were sell- 
ing unprotected in foreign markets in free competition with 
the rest of the world. Last year cotton goods of our make 
sold in China valued at $3,600,000. 

" In view of these facts the oft-re]Deated assertions that 
a reduction of the tariff to a revenue basis will destroy or 
injuriously affect the cotton industry are too absurd for 
belief, even by those who make them. A reduction of the 
tariff to a revenue basis will benefit the manufacturer to 
the extent it cheapens the cost of material and production, 
and benefit the laborer to the extent it cheapens the cost 
of the necessaries and comforts of life, while the importer 
must still pay more in- duty on imported goods than the 
manufacturer pays for wages in making domestic goods. 
It will increase rather than diminish the wages of labor, 
by extending and multiplying markets for the products of 
labor. As well manacle men for self-defense as to circum- 
scribe markets for the products of labor to increase wages. 

"Having now stated some of the hardships of this 
system in increased prices and cost of living, and the 
additional burden it entails upon the whole people, let us 
consider the census facts (1), indicating the more general 
results of the system and how it distributes its benefits to 
the few and its burdens to the many. These facts present 
results in the cotton, woolen, iron and steel, three of the 
oldest and best organized, and silk, one of the most pro- 



360 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ductive, industries. Taken together, they will fairly pre- 
sent the results of the protective system. In these the 
real and personal capital invested is |624,002,630, and 
the hands employed are 524,726, or one laborer to $1,190 
capital. Together they produce goods valued at $810,- 
522,286. After deducting the cost of material used, the 
remainder is divided, |300.16 to each laboror and |300.16 
to each $1,166 of capital, which leaves to capital twenty-five 
per cent., after deducting amounts paid for wages and ma- 
terials. It is answered that earnings are not all profits, that 
depreciation of capital and taxes must be deducted. This 
answer takes no account of the undervaluation of the 
product, which is all profit. There is not much profit in 
the $300 yearly wages to the operative after maintaining 
himself and family, and he is more taxed than his em- 
ployer. An impost or tariff tax is an income tax of the 
baser sort, for it taxes the whole income of the laboring 
poor, while it taxes only so much of the income of others 
as they expend in the necessaries, comforts and luxuries 
of life. The rates of wages in 1880 were less than in 
1870, allowing for difference in currency. The number of 
establishments were 284 less than in 1870 ; a great num- 
ber of smaller establishments have been crushed out by 
the stronger. And with our help in developing industries 
the establishments have increased in the iron industry, 
largely increased in silk, a new industry. The number 
of cotton establishments decreased. The woolen estab- 
lishments are 770 less than in 1870. The tariff on 
woolen shuts out foreign competition and kills it at home. 
We must have a tarifi* that will give us both competition 
in price and competition in quality. The account of 



WILLIAM H. MORRISON. 361 

materials used in woolen manufactures show that our 
woolen goods are not quite half shoddy and cotton. The 
aggregate results of the four industries are given. The 
tables will explain how they diifer each from the other. 
The average annual wages include the wages of laborers, 
skilled and unskilled, males and females, and, except as 
to the cotton industry, clerks, book-keepers and superin- 
tendents. Workers in iron and steel receive per day (300 
days in the year) $1.31 ; in wool, 98 cents ; silk, 88 cents ; 
in cotton, 81 cents. Besides the 141,000 laborers in iron- 
works, there are 32,000 iron miners, who receive $1.00 
per day, and the average wages for the 173,000 men work- 
ing from ten and a half to twelve hours per day in iron 
and iron mines, 32,000 of them under ground, was $1.25 
per day. This was in the year of exceptional prosperity, 
1880. There were at least five years between 1870 and 
1880 when these men received less than ninety cents per 
day. Wages are higher in this than in any other protected 
industry. After ninety years of protection — sometimes 
by a protective tariff, sometimes by a revenue tariff — this 
system gives to the laborers this pittance of 90 cents to 
$1.25 per day. It appears from official statements that, 
since the period of low wages in 1878, in Massachusetts, 
the richest State in the Union, wages have increased but 
seven per cent., while the cost of living has increased 
twenty-one per cent. The most prosperous mills in that 
State have recently reduced wages from 90 cents to 68 
cents per day. One of the honored representatives of 
that State asks legislation on another subject, among 
other reasons because of ' the daily accounts which come 
to us of strikes in various parts of the country.' 



362 OUR GREAT MEN. 

■"' " With these facts before us as a result of this system, 
the friends of this commission who profess so much con- 
cern for the rights and rewards of laboring men will 
surely add to it some provision which will give them some 
j)ortion of the bounties which it is the object of the Com- 
mission to continue. The average earnings of a laborer, 
$300.16, in the protected industries, are no more than 
equal to the wages paid in other industries. This bounty 
system adds nothing to the earnings of labor, but it gives 
to each $1,166 of capital $300.16. A fair business profit 
of ten per cent, would give it but $166.60. Is this the 
'justice to air which the friends of this Commission bill 
are so anxious to continue? 

"Who, sir, are the favorites of this system and the 
beneficiaries of this tax on labor and the products and 
wages of labor? The manufacturers, who counted them- 
selves 42,000 in 1870, and to-day do not number 55,000, if 
so many, 

« * « « « * 

"The protectionists, who credit this tarifi^ with all 
they consider good, and see nothing but evil in every pro- 
j)osed reduction, present us with a long list of inventions, 
the alleged result of genius, insj^ired by a tariff which 
puts a tax on salt for cattle and hogs, and makes it free for 
fish, gives bounty to the manufacturer of the iron and 
steel in the plow, to be 23aid by him who holds it. Statis- 
tics are not so complete as to justify an estimate of the 
number of useful discoveries to be credited to the manu- 
facturer who receives bounties, and the number to be 
credited to those whom they pay sixty-eight cents for a 
day's labor. When that list is furnished I venture the 



WILLIAM R. MORRISON. 363 

prediction that the useful inventions to be credited to 
highly protected manufacturers will be made up chiefly of 
■ useful inventions and methods for producing Congressional 
legislation, so largely as to justly entitle our tarifl^ system 
to the dignity of a science, the science of winning ways. 
"This paternal policy now aifects great solicitude for 
new industries. It asks us to believe it would develop 
new industries, or old industries in new homes, and is 
especially concerned about the undeveloped resources of 
the new South. If the South needs protection from Old 
England, who will protect her from the New? Who 
fi'om Pennsylvania's one-hundred-year-old and long-estab- 
lished industries, and her capital accumulated from the 
bounties of a century? When caj)ital invested in manu- 
factures ceases to be j)ensioned on our people it will suc- 
cessfully contend for the world's commerce, depending, it 
may be, upon the difference in cost of one-eighth of a cent 
per yard, or one-twentieth of a cent per pound. Then 
capital will avoid waste, and must go to the cotton and 
the ore. The manufacturing industries of the country, 
chiefly in the older States, are nearly or quite equal to the 
production of what all our people can use. If it be true 
that manufacturers, to j^rosper or survive, must be pro- 
tected in our own markets, as protectionists assert, and 
they can not therefore compete in the world's markets, 
what is to become of our old ' infant industries ' in Mas- 
sachusetts and Pennsylvania when new ' infants ' are born 
in Georgia, Alabama, Illinois and Iowa? Who, then, will 
pay for Massachusetts' school-houses and the musical 
instruments upon which the honorable chairman has his 
laboring people playing whenever he does not have them 



364 OUR GREAT MEN. 

starving? The anxiety of Pennsylvania and Massachu- 
setts to cut off their own markets in the interest of the 
new South is another evidence that protection quickens 
inventive genius and develops resources for securing Con- 
gressional legislation. 

*'In conclusion, sir, this question in its higher aspects 
is not a party, but a political question, affecting the distri- 
bution of property and the proceeds of labor, and going 
back to the foundation rocks of our political system. But 
it is also a business question. In this view, what we need 
is a business settlement of a business question — reason- 
able and practical treatment to avoid excessive changes ; 
and we must begin at once, for our surplus revenue is 
becoming the great corruption fund of the age. 

"Wages in shops and mills are the same as in other 
works of like kind, or less. Wages are not the criterion 
of cost ; it is the efficiency of labor that counts. Our wages 
are higher — they should be — and our cost is lower, because 
the labor is more effective. When the courage of our tex- 
tile manufacturers and our iron and steel makers is equal 
to their skill they will demand freedom from commercial 
shackles and bring the world's commerce to their feet." 




Hon. CLIFTON R. BRECKINRIDGE, 

OF AEKANSAS. 




IlIFTON K BRECKINRIDGE, of the 

famous family of Breckinridge, of Kentucky, 
was born in Lexington, Kentucky, Novem- 
ber 22d, 1846. He received a very thorough 
common-school education. 

During the war he served as private in the Confeder- 
ate Army. After peace was again restored he clerked for 
two years in a commercial house, and then attended Wash- 
ington College, of Virginia, for three years, thus completing 
his education. 

In 1870 he went to Arkansas and engaged in cotton- 
planting, and followed that, together with the commission 
business, till 1883. He was elected to the Forty-eighth 
Congress, and re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a 
Democrat. 

The following is a speech of Mr. Breckinridge's on 

pensions : 

"I will make only one or two brief observations in 
connection with this bill. There is no more friendly tri- 
bunal in the world to which a man ever made an appeal 
for the recognition of every just claim, and for the redress 
of any real wrong, than this Congress in its dealings with 

(365) 



366 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the Union soldiers. But, sir, whenever a bill comes before 
this House that carries with it an appropriation of money, 
I hold the time has come for very careful scrutiny ; all dis- 
cussion bearing upon matters of taxation and the distress 
that exists among the people, is exceedingly pertinent and 
j)roi)er. If there has been an omission in dealing with the 
soldiers, if a wrong has been committed that ought to be 
righted, I do not believe there is a gentleman uj^on this 
floor from any section of the country who does not heartily 
wish to see the record made clean and correct. But, sir, 
we should remember one thing in our general policy — 
that we have now beneficiary legislation for the survivors 
of the late war that amounts to an annual expenditure 
that is not below what is spent for the standing armies of 
any except three or four of the leading nations of the 
earth. 

" We imagine that we are without the expenditures of 
a great military establishment ; but, while still burdened 
with a debt that results from that war, our annual expendi- 
tures of this character are, I repeat, as great as those of 
any nation on earth for its military establishment, except 
three or four of the principal monarchies of Europe. That 
is all right, and just, and j^roper. But, sir, when these 
rates and expenditures have been fixed at a time when 
the gratitude of the country was at its highest flood, when 
these rates and expenditures have been fixed at a time 
when the purchasing power of money was far less than it 
is to-day, or ever will be again, it behooves the people of 
this country to analyze the causes — I will not say the 
motives — which imj^el to additional legislation of this 
sort. I will not say they are demagogical, but I will say 



CLIFTOX R. BRECKIXRIDGE. 367 

that they are very apt to be unwise and unpatriotic in 
view of the just claims of all classes of the people. 

"But in the face of all this bring up your claim, and 
if you will establish it by some other line of appeal than 
that which was made just now by the gentleman from 
Nebraska [Mr. Laird], an appeal merely to the loyalty of 
the claimant and to the ancient rebelliousness of those who 
git in judgment upon the claim, you will have it allowed 
upon the establishment of such merit as would pass it 
before any dispassionate tribunal in the country. Before 
a single syllable had fallen from the lips of a Southern 
man the gentleman from Nebraska had to laud the loy- 
alty of the claimant without arguing the merits of the 
case, and had cast odium ujDon those who, whatever they 
are or whatever they have been, are here as free and 
unshackled American citizens, representing the tax-payers 
of this country. Sir, it is in that spirit, in the sj)irit of 
loyalty, taking up these obligations of gratitude, remem- 
bering that we are a people of a common Union, and 
that to-day we are not from North or from South, from 
East or from West, but from the different portions of 
one common country, and representing the tax-payers 
of that country — it is in that spirit that I say: establish 
your claim, establish its merits, and you shall have my 
vote for its allowance; but do not, for God's sake, come 
here with such appeals as the one we have just heard." 



Hon. henry g. turner, 



OF GEOKGIA. 




ENRY G. TURNER, of Quitman, who so 
ably represents the Second Congressional 
District of Georgia in the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States Congress, is 
a native of North Carolina. He was born the 20th of 
March, 1839. 

He was a member of the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth 
Congresses, and re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as 
a Democrat. The following is an extract from his speech 
on the contested-election case of Hurd against Romeis: 

"In his great speech on the motion made to expel 
John Wilkes from the House of Commons, Mr. Grenville 
said that he proposed 'to execute an office higher than 
any that the king could bestow, the honorable and noble 
office of sj^eaking the truth and of doing impartial justice.' 
1 trust, sir, that it will not be regarded as presumption 
in me if I, too, should endeavor to choose that better 
part to-day. Rut I can re-enforce my courage with a 
more appropriate example of independence, because it is 
both American and democratic. 

"During the last Congress there was pending in th© 
House the contested-election case of Wallace against 

C368) 



HENEY G. TURNER. 369 

McKinley from the State of Ohio. The contestant in 
this case, then, in defiance of party clamor, exerted his 
best efforts and his great abilities to maintain on this floor 
a Republican colleague against a Democratic contestant 
from his own State, and, on that occasion, as now, he had 
the aid and co-operation of the gentleman from Ken- 
tucky. Those who vainly opposed the contestant in that 
case exhibited courage rather than judicial propriety. 
The chief adversary of that contestant was the great man 
who has just stamped his foot upon the same arena in 
his own behalf. Ex pede Herculum ! I give the phrase 
back to the gentleman from Kentucky. 

"Mr. Speaker, we are engaged in the performance of 
the highest function devolving upon the House under the 
Constitution. It is our constitutional duty to act as 
judges in the determination of election cases. What 
would gentlemen here think who sit in this high court as 
judges if a man should appeal to them to decide this case 
according to private beliefs or arbitrary opinions ? I pro- 
pose, Mr. Speaker, so far as in me lies, to lay down the 
higher and better rule, that these cases shall be tried 
upon the facts alleged and proven according to law and 
the course of our proceedings. 

"You know, Mr. Speaker, that when this Congress 
first assembled it was my wish to avoid the responsibility 
imposed by the rules upon the members of the Committee 
on Elections. For some reason, I trust not dishonorable 
to me, certainly not to the Speaker, I was again assigned 
to that committee. I feel, sir, that if I should fail to do 
my duty in this case I should dishonor both myself and 
the House. 



370 OUR GREAT MEN. 

" How does this case stand ? The contestant himself, 
and those who support him in his contest, have put his 
case upon two jirecincts, Precinct B of Ward 8, in the citj 
of Toledo, and Kelly's Island. In considering these ques- 
tions I shall take it for granted that members have heard 
the statements of fact on both sides and have a fair con- 
ception of the testimony. 

"The gentleman from Kentucky, who so recently 
addressed the House in behalf of the contestant, ' after a 
most careful examination' of the case, admitted that if 
each fact forming a ground of contest be taken up by 
itself and isolated, 'it would not be sufficient to base a 
verdict upon.' And he ascribed the difference of opinion 
which exists between the majority and the minority of 
the committee to the fact that the majority looked at the 
facts in detail, while the minority looked at them as a 
whole. And he proceeded to state his conclusion based 
upon a reading of ' all the j^apers, taken as a whole and 
concatenated as a series.' But the contestant who fol- 
lowed the gentleman from Kentucky in this discussion 
did not rely on some of the matters on which that gen- 
tleman seemed to depend. Mr. Hurd did not even 
allude to the fact that one of the judges of election at 
Precinct B of the Eighth Ward of Toledo did not reside 
within the precinct; and yet the gentleman from Ken- 
tucky laid large stress upon that circumstance. The 
statute of Ohio did not then require that the judges of 
election in the city of Toledo should reside in the pre- 
cinct. We have no right to supplement that statute." 



M 







J^^mnilS IB» Bla^IMS 



•'Ije 



^ • 



Hon. JAMES G. BLAINE, 



OF MAINE. 




AMES G. BLAINE was born at Indian 
Hill, Washington County, Pennsylvania, 
the 31st of January, 1830. His great 
grandfather. Colonel Ephraini Blaine, of 
Middlesex, Pennsylvania, was Commissary-General of 
the Continental Army, on the staff of General Washing- 
ton, from 1778 till the close of the Revolutionary War. 

Mr. Blaine is of Scotch descent, his ancestors forming 
part of a colony of Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyteri- 
ans who settled in the Cumberland Valley early in the 
seventeenth century. His father inherited some property 
in Western Pennsylvania, and in 1818 he removed to 
Washington County, Pennsylvania. There he became 
acquainted with the lady who afterward became his wife 
and the mother of young James. 

The education of the embryo statesman was superin- 
tended with great care by his father and his maternal 
grandfather. In 1841 he attended school in Lancaster, 
Ohio, and in 1844 he entered Washington College, in 
Pennsylvania, graduating there in 1847 with his share of 
the honors of the class. 

He then went to Kentucky, where he was employed 

23 (373) 



374 OUE GREAT MEN. 

as an instructor in the Western Military Institute, of 
Kentucky. It was here he became acquainted with Miss 
Harriet Sherwood, who became his wife. Mr. Blaine 
left Kentucky and lived in Philadelj)hia for three years, 
where he was employed as instructor in one of the public 
institutions. During this time he was also employed on 
the editorial staff of the Daily Inquirer. While in Phila- 
delphia he completed his law studies. 

He finally settled in Augusta, Maine, and purchased 
a half interest in the Kennebec Journal. The j)artner of 
Mr. Blaine was John L. Stevens, late United States Min- 
ister to Sweden. The memory of Mr. Blaine is extraor- 
dinary. He readily familiarized himself with Maine pol- 
itics by reading the bound files of the Kennebec Journal., 
which extended back to 1825. His paper became a great 
success and exercised a wide influence. Mr. Blaine 
became a leader in the Whig and Republican parties. 
In 1858 he edited the Portland Advertiser, still resid- 
ing in Augusta. He edited the Advertiser for three 
years. 

Upon the organization of the Republican party in 
1854, Mr. Blaine became an active member, and was a 
delegate to its first JN'ational Convention, in 1856, helping 
to nominate Fremont for the Presidency. From 1859 to 
1880 he was chairman of the Republican State Commit- 
tee. In 1859 he was elected to the State Legislature of 
Maine. For many years he has been known as one of the 
best political orators in the country. 

He was appointed by Governor Morrill to inspect the 
prisons and reformatories of other States, and suggest 
alterations and imjDrovements in those of his own State. 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 375 

He discharged this duty faithfully and well, thereby 
improving those institutions in the State of Maine. 

During 1861 and 1862 he was Speaker of the House 
of Representatives of the Maine Legislature. In 1862 he 
was elected to Congress, where he served in the House of 
Representatives for fourteen years, when he left it only 
to accept a seat in the United States Senate, to which he 
was appointed by Governor Morrill, to fill the vacancy 
caused by the resignation of Hon. L. M. Morrill. He was 
subsequently elected to the United States Senate by the 
State Legislature. While a member of the National 
House of Representatives he served for six years as 
Speaker of that body. Mr. Blaine is a great parliamenta- 
rian and a ready debater. 

He was a member of the Committee on Post-Offices in 
the Thirty-eighth Congress. In the Thirty-ninth he was 
chairman of the Committee on War Debts of the Loyal 
States, and a member also of the Committee on Military 
Affairs. He served on the Committee on Appropriations. 

Mr. Blaine was a candidate for the Presidential nomi- 
nation in the Republican National Convention of 1876, in 
Cincinnati. On the first six ballots Mr. Blaine held the 
highest number, but on the seventh Mr. Hayes had a 
majority, and was nominated. He was again a candidate 
for the nomination in 1880. He received two hundred 
and eighty-four votes on the first ballot against three hun- 
dred and four for General Grant and ninety-three for Sen- 
ator Sherman. He held the most of this vote till the 
thirty-sixth ballot, when his forces were turned to Gar- 
field, who was nominated. 

When President Garfield was inaugurated, March 4th, 



376 OUR GREAT MEN. 

1881, he appointed Mr. Blaine Secretary of State. He was 
President Grarfield's best friend, and Avas with him when 
he was assassinated in the Baltimore and Ohio Depot, in 
Washington, the 2d of July, 1881. From that time until 
the death of President Grarfield, in September, he was in 
reality the head of the Government. He retired from the 
Cabinet of President Arthur in December of that year. 
In the latter part of December he was chosen by Congress 
to deliver the oration in the memorial services for the late 
President, to be held February 27th, 1882. 

The following extract is from this eloquent eulogy, 
which is considered one of the finest efforts of this emi- 
nent statesman : 

"On the morning of Saturday, July 2d, the President 
was a contented and happy man — not in an ordinary 
degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his way 
to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in cou' 
scions enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an 
unwonted sense of leisure and a keen anticipation of 
pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory 
vein. He felt that after four months of trial his admin- 
istration was strong in its grasp of aifairs, strong in pop' 
ular favor, and destined to grow stronger ; that grave diffi- 
culties confronting him at his inauguration had been 
safely passed ; that trouble lay behind him, and not before 
him ; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, 
now recoA^ering from an illness which had but lately dis- 
quieted and at times almost unnerved him; that he was 
going to his Alma Mater, to renew the most cherished 
associations of his young manhood, and to exchange greet- 
ings with those whose deepening interest had followed 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 377 

every step of his upward progress from the clay he entered 
U2:)on his college course until he had attained the loftiest 
elevation in the gift of his countrymen. 

"Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors 
or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning 
James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. 
No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premo- 
nition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was 
upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, 
strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out 
before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, 
doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence and the 
grave. 

"Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. 
For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wicked- 
ness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the 
full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspira- 
tions, its victories, into the visible presence of death — 
and he did not quail. N'ot alone for one short moment 
in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly 
aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly 
languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony 
because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, 
he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin 
met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell — what brill- 
iant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what 
sundering of strong, warm manhood's friendships, what 
bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a 
proud, expectant Nation, a great host of sustaining friends, 
a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich 
honors of her early toil and tears ; the wife of his youth, 



f 



378 OUR GREAT MEN. 

whose whole life lay in his ; the little boys not yet emerged 
from childhood's day of frolic; the fair young daughter; 
the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, 
claiming every day, and every day rewarding a father's 
love and care ; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing 
power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and 
great darkness! and his soul was not shaken. His 
countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and uni- 
versal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he 
became the center of a nation's love, enshrined in the 
prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sym- 
pathy could not share with him his suifering. He trod 
the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced 
death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. 
Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard 
the voice of Grod. With simple resignation he bowed 
to the divine decree. 

"As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea 
returned. The stately mansion of jDower had been to 
him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to 
be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling 
air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, 
silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer 
to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as 
God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within 
sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face 
tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wist- 
fully upon the ocean's changing wonders ; on its fair sails, 
whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves 
rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday 
sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the 



^m^. 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 379 

horizon ; on the serene and shining j)athway of the stars. 
Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning 
which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us 
believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard 
the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt 
already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal 
morning." 

In the National Republican Convention of 1884, in 
Chicago, Mr. Blaine was nominated for the Presidency 
on the fourth ballot. His chief competitors were Pres- 
ident Arthur and Senators Edmunds and Logan. Sen- 
ator John A. Logan was nominated for Yice-President. 
The following extracts from the letter of acceptance, 
published July 19th, 1884, will give some of its chief 
points : 

"Revenue laws are in their very nature subject to 
frequent revision, in order that they may be adapted to 
changes and modifications of trade. The Republican 
party is not contending for the permanency of any par- 
ticular statute. The issue between the two parties does 
not have reference to a specified law. It is far broader 
and far deeper. It involves a principle of wide applica- 
tion and beneficent influence, against a theory which we 
believe to be unsound in conception and inevitably hurt- 
ful in practice. In the many tariff revisions which have 
been necessary for the past twenty-three years, or which 
may hereafter become necessary, the Republican party 
has maintained, and will maintain, the policy of protec- 
tion to American industry, while our opponents insist 
upon a revision which practically destroys that policy. 
The issue is thus distinct, well defined and unavoidable. 



'ViV' 



380 OUR GREAT MEN. 

The pending election may determine the fate of protec- 
tion for a generation. The overthrow of the policy 
means a large and permanent reduction in the wages of 
the American laborer, besides involving the loss of vast 
amounts of American capital invested in manufacturing 
enterprises. 

" The agricultural interest is by far the largest in the 
Nation, and is entitled in every adjustment of revenue 
laws to the fullest consideration. Any policy hostile to 
the fullest development of agriculture in the United 
States must be abandoned. Realizing this fact, the oppo- 
nents of the present system of revenue have labored j 
very earnestly to persuade the farmers of the United 
States that they are robbed by a protective tariff, and 
the effort is thus made to consolidate their vast influence 
in favor of free trade. But, happily, the farmers of 
America are intelligent, and can not be misled by sophis- 
try when conclusive facts are before them. They see 
plainly that during the past twenty-four years wealth 
has not been acquired in one section or by one interest 
at the expense of another section or another interest. 
They see that the agricultural States have made even 
more rapid progress than the manufacturing States. 
The farmers see that in 1860 Massachusetts and Illinois 
had about the same wealth — between $800,000,000 and 
$900,000,000 each— and that in 1880 Massachusetts had 
advanced to $2,600,000,000, while Illinois had advanced 
to 13,200,000,000. They see that T^ew Jersey and Iowa 
were just equal in population in 1860, and that in twenty 
years the wealth of New Jersey was increased by the 
sum of $850,000,000, while the wealth of Iowa was 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 381 

increased by the sum of $1,500,000,000. They see that 
the nine leading agricultural States of the West have 
grown so rapidly in prosperity that the aggregate addi- 
tion to their wealth since 1860 is almost as great as the 
wealth of the entire country in that year. In these 
extraordinary developments the farmers see the helpful 
impulse of a home market, and they see that the finan- 
cial and revenue system enacted since the Republican 
party came into power has established and constantly 
expanded the home market. 

"As a substitute for the industrial system which, under 
Republican administration, has developed such extraor- 
dinary prosperity, our opponents offer a policy which is 
but a series of experiments upon our system of revenue — 
a policy whose end must be harm to our manufactures 
and a greater harm to our labor. Experiment in the 
industrial and financial system is the country's greatest 
dread, as stability is its greatest boon. Even the uncer- 
tainty resulting from the recent tariff agitation in Con- 
gress has hurtfully affected the business of the entire 
country. 

" Any effort to unite the Southern States upon issues 
that grow out of the memories of the war will summon 
the JSTorthern States to combine in the assertion of that 
nationality which was their inspiration in the civil strug- 
gle, and thus great energies which should be united in a 
common industrial development will be wasted in hurtful 
strife. The Democratic party show^s itself a foe to South- 
ern prosperity by always invoking and urging Southern 
political consolidation. Such a policy quenches the rising 
instinct of patriotism in the heart of the Southern youth ; 



sv- 



382 OUR GREAT MEN. 

it revives and stimulates prejudice; it substitutes the 
spirit of barbaric vengeance for the love of peace, prog- 
ress and harmony. 

"The growth of the country has continually and nec- 
essarily enlarged the civil service, until now it includes a 
vast body of officers. Rules and methods of appointment 
which prevailed when the number was smaller have been 
found insufficient and impracticable, and earnest effi^rts 
have been made to separate the great mass of ministerial 
officers from partisan influence and personal control. 
Impartiality in the mode of appointment to be based on 
qualification, and security of tenure to be based on faith- 
ful discharge of duty, are the two ends to be accomplished. 
The public business will be aided by separating the leg- 
islative branch of the Grovernment from all control of ap- 
j)ointments, and the Executive De23artment will be relieved 
by subjecting appointments to fixed rules, and thus remov- 
ing them from the caprice of favoritism. But [there 
should be rigid observance of the law which gives in all 
cases of equal competency the preference to the soldiers 
who risked their lives in defense of the Union. 

"The claim of the Mormons that they are divinely 
authorized to joractice polygamy should no more be admit- 
ted than the claim of heathen tribes, if they should come 
among us, to continue the right of human sacrifice. The 
law does not interfere with what a man believes, it takes 
cognizance only of what he does. As citizens the Mor- 
mons are entitled to the same civil rights as others, and 
to these they must be confined. Polygamy can never 
receive national sanction or toleration by the admission 
of the community that upholds it, as a State in the Union. 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 383 

Like others, the Mormons must learn that the liberty of 
the individual ceases where the rights of society begin." 

During the latter part of the campaign Mr. Blaine 
addressed a great many mass-meetings in his own State, 
and many of the other Northern States, especially in New 
York, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. He made public 
addresses for forty-three days continuously, speaking over 
four hundred times in that period. But, in spite of his 
best efforts and the efforts of the party that stood behind 
him, he was beaten by thirty-seven majority in the Elec- 
toral College. 

In 1884 the first volume of a work by Mr. Blaine, enti- 
tled Twenty Years in Congress^ was issued. As a his- 
torian Mr. Blaine will rank among the first. Especially 
in his judgment of public men, he writes like a true his- 
torian. The second and last volume of the work was 
issued in 1886. 



m 






Hon. EDWARD S. BRAGG, 



OF WISCONSIN. 




DWARD S. BRAGG, of Fond du Lac, is a 
native of IS'ew York. He was born the 20th 
of February, 1827. He is a graduate of 
Geneva College. He studied law and was 
admitted to the Bar of 'New York in 1848. He removed 
to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1850, and has ever since 
resided there and practiced his profession. He was elected 
District Attorney in 1854. In 1861 he entered the Union 
Army as Captain, and served till the close of the war, 
when he had risen to the rank of Brigadier-General. 

He was appointed Postmaster of Fond du Lac by 
President Johnson in 1866. In 1868 and 1869 he was a 
member of the State Senate of Wisconsin. He was a 
member of the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh and 
Forty-ninth Congresses. He is a strong Democrat — 
always true to his colors. 

In a debate on revenues, Mr. Bragg said: 
"I am exceedingly indebted to the distinguished gen- 
tleman from Maine for his reference to the failure of this 
House to consent to the consideration of a revenue bill 
reported from the Committee on Ways and Means. I am; 
delighted at it, because it shows what sort of contempt- 

(384) 



EDWARD S. BRAGG. 385 

the Republicans of this House feel toward those who 
have been recreant to their faith, to their pledges ; that, 
while they are received with open arms and approbation 
for the acts they have done, they are thoroughly despised 
for their political recreancy. 

"Mr. Speaker, when I came into this House, a few 
moments ago, the distinguished gentleman from Iowa had 
the floor, and I stopped for a moment to listen, for I 
thought that, by accident, I had strayed into a camp- 
meetinfi:. But in a few moments I saw it was the old 
hobby-horse, brought out to be ridden round again and 
pranced and posed in the presence of the American people 
for the benefit of the claim-agent newspapers, and to cir- 
culate them among that class of men whose votes they 
think can be bought by their pretending to be the ' sol- 
diers' friends.' [Cries of 'Oh!' 'Oh!'] Yes, 'Oh!' 
[Laughter.] I repeat, 'Oh!' [Many cries of 'Oh!' 'Oh!'] 
Who was it, when you had two-thirds majority in this 
House, when the war was still recent, when men were 
suifering from wounds everywhere — who was it that 
passed a limitation upon pensions, and provided that every 
claim not presented within five years should only com- 
mence to draw a pension from the date of the filing of 
the act? "^Tio was that? Will you answer me? 'Oh!' 
[Laughter.] It was the Republican party — 'Oh!' Who 
was it that repealed that limitation upon arrears, and 
gave the soldiers w^hose cases were pending their pen- 
sions from the date of their disability? It was the Dem- 
ocratic party. 'Oh!' 

"Who was it that, in their national convention in 
1884, declared in favor of the repeal of the limitation on 



w 



386 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the arrears, and one of their candidates, now presiding in 
one of the branches of this Grovernment, within thirty 
days afterward refused to follow the platform of his j)arty ? 
It was one of the great Republican financial leaders, who 
now occupies the position of President of the Senate. 

"IS'ow, why is it we hear all this talk? There is 
nothing in this resolution relating to the refusal of 
soldiers' pensions. This resolution provides for means 
of paying soldiers' j^ensions. It is not to refuse to grant 
them, but to provide for their payment, and when these 
men sj^ring to their feet and cry out, it is an attack on 
the soldiers, it is nothing but an attempt, under the guise 
of friendship to the soldier element of the country, to 
protect the bondholder, to protect the wealthy man, to 
protect those men who, during the war, favored by a 
Kepublican administration, fattened upon the blood of 
men in the field, and, as contractors, filled their purses. 
They have been protected and pay no tax, because they 
hold Grovernment bonds that were bought with currency 
worth fifty cents on a dollar. They have received their 
interest promptly, some of them semi-annually, year after 
year, without paying anything upon that capital. But 
when we proj)ose, in order to provide a method for pay- 
ing soldiers, to reach this fund that has refused to pay 
what it ought to the support of the Government, and 
when we say that that fund which was made out of the 
blood of the soldiers, that property which was protected 
by the blood of the soldiers, shall contribute to the pay- 
ment of i^ensions, then we find these men crying out 
simply because it is a method to reach their ducats. 
Hinc nice lachrymcey % 



Hon. JOHN T. MORGAN, 

OF ALABAMA. 




^lOHN T. MORGAN, one of the most pop- 
ular men of Alabama, was born in Athens, 



Tennessee, the 20th of June, 1824. He 
received the most of his education in Ala- 
bama, for his people removed there when he was only 
nine years of age. Alabama has ever since been his 
home. 

He studied law, and was admitted to the Bar in 1845, 
and has followed his profession, except during the war, 
till he was elected to the United States Senate. In 1860 
was a Presidential Elector for the State at large and cast 
his vote for Breckinridge and Lane. In 1861 he was a 
Delegate from Dallas County to the State Secession Con- 
vention, and early in 1861 he joined the Confederate 
Army. He enlisted as a private, but before the close of 
the war was appointed Brigadier-General. After the 
war he again took up the practice of his profession. In 
1876 he was a Presidential Elector for the State at large 
and voted for Tilden and Hendricks. 

He took his seat in the United States Senate the 5th 
of March, 1877, having been elected as a Democrat; and 
was re-elected in 1882. 

(887) 



388 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Mr. Morgan is one of the most active members of the 
Senate. The following is a portion of his celebrated 
speech on the Mormon question: 

"I am somewhat charry in endeavoring to array my 
opinion against the Senator from Vermont, who has 
studied this question very thoroughly, and I must say 
that I believe he has studied it in a spirit of justice and 
fairness, with a disposition to do what the American 
people require to be done and what should be done to 
remove this flagrant outrage from the American society, 
to say nothing of taking it out of the pale of the American 
Christianity. But I must differ with the Senator from 
Vermont as to the nature of the remedy he proposes. For 
one, I must say I do not consider that the measure which 
the Senator from Vermont brings forward is as heroic and 
as radical as it ought to be. He is not given to stopping 
on his center. When that Senator conceives that some- 
thing ought to be done for the public welfare, he is usually 
willing to take up the subject by its rough handle and 
carry it through to all of its logical consequences without 
turning back or looking back; but on this occasion I 
think the honorable Senator from Vermont has been 
alarmed by his own regard for what should be the pro- 
priety of action on the part of the Congress of the United 
States in dealing with a subject of natural delicacy, the 
subject of the establishment of religion. I might say for 
myself, but I would not say it as a lawyer, that in deal- 
ing with this corporation, or with its associated ecclesi- 
astical organization, I do not feel that I am dealing with 
a religious establishment. I feel that I am dealing with 
something that is entirely irreligious, that has no just 



JOHN T. MORGAN. 389 

pretension at all to be called a religion in a Christian 
country. It would be a very fair religion in China or in 
any Mohammedan country ; it would do very well for the 
Congo Free State, perhaps; but in Christian America 
this can hardly be rated as an establishment of religion. 
It is an establishment of vice, which is controlled by an 
autocracy or a hierarchy which calls itself a church, and 
professes to be founded upon a revelation made to 
a human being in these latter days in the United 
States through books which were transmitted here and 
translated by himself, a revelation from the Almighty, 
which, in its essence and in its quality, and in every par- 
ticular, denies and reprobates and overturns what we 
understand to be the revelations upon which the Christian 
system is founded. 

"If the priests of the Mohammedan religion were 
here for the purpose of establishing themselves in any 
Territory of the United States, and for the purpose of 
propagating that well-known system (which includes 
some very virtuous elements, particularly that of tem- 
perance) in one of our Territories, and if they should 
call upon the Territorial Legislature, and through that 
Legislature in effect upon Congress, to grant a legal 
charter for their church, I do not suppose that in a case 
of that kind any lawyer in the United States would 
regard me as at all departing from the traditions of the 
profession, or as violating any known principle of consti- 
tutional law, if I should object that we had no poAver to 
confer a legal charter upon a Mohammedan church in a 
Territory in order to organize it as a religious establish- 
ment. I would deny the power in a case of that kind, 

24 



390 OUR GREAT MEN. 

because the exercise of that legislative power in the 
organization of that sect in this Christian country would 
be in eifect to overturn the spirit and substance and 
foundation of the whole of the Christianity which ^^er- 
vades this country, and which enters into our society, 
and through that into our laws. If I should find an act 
of a Territorial Legislature giving incorporation to a 
Mohammedan church, one of whose tenets is that a man 
shall have a plurality of wives if he chooses, I would not. 
hesitate to repeal that law, because it would violate the 
whole sentiment of the American people, and it would 
violate the spirit of the Constitution. 

"Now, when the Legislature of Utah organized this 
miserable pretension of a church, which was organized 
for the pur]30se of covering up and protecting by the 
sanctity of religion the allowance of low, flagrant crimes 
in the community to which the whole sentiment of the 
people of the United States is adverse; when they 
passed this act of legislation of this so-called church 
they violated, if not the letter, the spirit of the Consti- 
tution, for they legislated for the purpose of establishing 
a religion. They did not legalize action in reference to 
a religion which existed and was recognized by the 
American people. They did not legislate as we would 
legislate in respect to any of the great Catholic or Prot- 
estant denominations known to these Christian communi- 
ties, to give legal power and organization to them in 
order to hold property merely. That act of the Legis- 
lature of Utah was an act for the establishment of a 
religion which before that time had no foundation in 
public acceptance and no foundation in law. That act 



I 



JOHN T. MORGAN. 391 

was the building up of the Mormon church. These 
men had been scouted from communities to the east of 
the Mississippi River and driven like public enemies 
abroad into the wilderness. They were routed from 
Illinois, Missouri and other States as nuisances to the 
community. Their temjoles were torn down or burned 
down about their heads, and their propagators and pre- 
tended priests and prophets were imprisoned and pun- 
ished by the populace. Taking refuge in the wilderness, 
at that time within the domain of Mexico, coming to us 
by an annexation of territory, when they got the power 
of a Territorial Legislature out there, the first thing they 
did with it was to use that power contrary to the Consti- 
tution of the United States to establish a religon. But 
for the exercise of that power of legislation in the Terri- 
tory the Mormon religion would never have been estab- 
lished in that country. It would have lingered along in 
a miserable way under the condemnation of public senti- 
ment abroad as well as of public sentiment that was 
rapidly forming and growing in the midst of those people, 
and it would have utterly perished and passed out of 
view, as the Oneida settlement has done in New York. 

" But the purpose of that act and its whole intention 
was to establish a religion, and well and wisely did they 
legislate. They formed their legal organization, but in 
forming it they enacted into the law some of the precepts 
of their pretended religion, and they gave to this church 
as a body corporate the power to do much else than 
merely to hold property in a legal way for the advantage 
of the institution. I read to the Senate this morning a 
long array of the powers that they have. 



392 OUR GREAT MEX. 

" The corporation is formed under a law, and the uses 
and trusts and purposes of that corporation are in that 
law distinctly and clearly defined. What are they? 
When read even between the lines, when read according 
to the interpretation of the very men who enacted the 
laws, the}^ are for the propagation of polygamy; they 
are for the establishment of a church hierarchy there, 
having more power than any Legislature in the United 
States ; they are for the taxing of the people to one-tenth 
of the 2^roduct of their annual labor ; they are for giving 
power to the ruling authorities in that church, the priests 
and apostles and bishops and other men in authority, so 
that they may exercise upon individuals a degree of 
duress, not merely spiritual duress, but - personal and 
physical duress and control over their j^roperty, which 
shall compel them to bow in submission to any decree 
that the church may put forward. 

''Here, then, are the uses and trusts and purposes of 
the act of incorporation declared in the act itself. When 
these tithes flow in and are converted into money, when 
the voluntary contributions which are made to this 
church go into the treasury, vfhcn the money that they 
receive from their stocks in railroad corporations comes 
in, who has the power to control it? Says the Senator 
from Vermont, not the trustees ; the}^ have only the 
power to hold it. That is true ; but in the act you have 
got the trustees and you have got the church, but with 
all the controlling power physically and morally that 
that church can exercise, and that church can exercise the 
control and direction of the fund so as to apply it to the 
uses specified in the act. 



JOHN T. MORGAN. 393 

"What then are our fourteen trustees to do? They 
are to go there and receive the property — yes, the tithes 
received, all contributions, all donations that may be 
made, in pursuance of law. The law that is upon the 
statute-book of Utah holds them in their treasury account- 
able to whom for them? This bill does not make them 
accountable to the United States. The trustees are 
accountable to the church. Will you substitute trustees 
in the act, and say to those trustees you shall execute the 
trusts and uses and purposes for which the act was 
made ? Will the Congress of the United States under- 
take the task of running the Mormon church so as to 
collect its revenues from time to time, and apply them to 
the uses prescribed by law ? That is the question as I 
understand it. 

••The honorable Senator from Vermont says that 
these funds, vv^hen received by the trustees, are to be put 
into a common-school fund. The act does not so pro- 
vide, except as to those corporations which have violated 
the provisions of the act of 1861, in which case an escheat 
takes place by a proceeding in some court, and the 
fund escheated is carried into the common treasury of 
the school fund — diverted from the church and carried 
to the school fund. That, sir, is a confiscation. That in 
another form is an escheat. You take the fund away from 
the church in that case, and you carry it into the com- 
mon-school fund. 

"But up to the $50,000 that they have a right to hold, 
and also in reference to the revenues that they derive 
fi'om the tithing, I can see nothing in this bill that will 
prevent these trustees from being compelled to execute 



394 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the trusts of the original act. Here stands a church, call 
it a Baptist church, or a Methodist church, or a Pres- 
byterian church, in order to see how exactly what the 
l^owers of the trustees are. Here is a Presbyterian 
church in the Territory into whose government and into 
whose act of incorporation Congress has injected four- 
teen trustees to take and hold the j^roperty. The act of 
organization of that Presbyterian church requires that 
the moneys which shall fall into the treasury of that 
church, it shall make no difference how, shall be applied 
to certain religious uses, and instead of applying that 
money to the religious uses of this orthodox denomina- 
tion of Presbyterians, as is prescribed by the act of the 
Territory of Utah, you take that money and convey it 
into the treasury of the common-school system. 

" Why, sir, the whole United States would revolt at 
it. Yes, the Christian world would revolt at an act of 
that kind j^erpetrated in respect of the Presbyterian de- 
nomination. 

"Now we will change it, and we will call it the 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and apply 
the very same provisions to it. 

•P ^^ ^F f" ^f ^ 

" Sir, I can not get my consent to leaving this statute 
in force to the effect and to the extent of enabling a court 
of justice to require these .trustees to execute the uses and 
purposes of that original trust. In doing it we uphold 
the spirit, intent and purpose with which the original act 
incorporating this church was enacted. I would, as I 
said, put the ax to the root of the tree." 



Hon. henry m. teller, 



OF COLOEADO. 




lENRY M. TELLER, of Central City, was 
born in Alleghany County, New York, May 
23d, 1830. He studied law and was admit- 
ted to the Bar in New York. In 1858 he 
removed to Illinois, and on to Colorado in 1861. On the 
admission of Colorado as a State, in 1876, he was elected 
to the United States Senate, taking his seat December 
4th, 1876. He was re-elected to the Senate, and served 
until March 4th, 1881. He was appointed Secretary of 
the Interior by President Arthur, April 17th, 1882, and 
served until March 3d, 1885. He was elected to the 
United States Senate as a Rej^ublican, and took his seat 
March 4th, 1885. 

Mr. Teller is a great worker in the Senate, and the fol- 
lowing is a portion of an able effort of his on the Mor- 
mon question: 

"Mr. President, polygamy is a crime; but it is not 
greater than murder, it is not greater than other crimes 
known in the catalogue of human vice. It is contrary to 
our ideas of civilization ; it is contrary to our judgment 
of what is to the best interest of a political organization ; 
it is contrary to our religious convictions, and therefore 

(395) 



39G OUR GREAT MEN. 

we do not look at it with calm consideration, and we do 
not consider when we come to attempt to put our hand 
U23on it how we are best to do it. We want, as a Senator 
said to me to-day, to j^ut the knife in. So say I, but put 
the knife in under color of law ; put the knife in by a con- 
stitutional moA^ement. 

"I believe the act of 1862 was sufficient to have erad- 
icated this evil if it had been projierly administered. I 
believe it was a proper law. I have never criticised it; 
I have never criticised the action of the General Govern- 
ment; but I say its agencies sent there from time to time 
were of a character that was calculated to defeat the laud- 
able purpose of the law. I joined, as a member of the 
committee and as a member of the Senate, in the passage 
of the act of 1882. I believe that act is now capable of 
carrying out and completing the end which we all are so 
desirous to attain. I did not intend yesterday in my 
criticisms to criticise the past transactions under this 
law, but to criticise the actions under the old law. The 
honorable Senator says we all know that no effort was 
made to enforce it. That is what I complain of. For 
fifteen years the Government made practically no effort 
at all ; it sent men out there who professedly, for a time, 
attempted to enforce it in the most odious and most 
objectionable manner jwssible, and yet did nothing. 

"Whether these j^eople have been persecuted or not 
is a matter of judgment. I do not yield to any man on 
this floor in knowledge on this question. I know these 
people as well as anybody here does, and I know their 
history well; but I am no believer in their religion. I 
regard their chief prophet as an arrant knave. I do not 



HENRY M. TELLER. 397 

believe anv revelation was ever made to Joe Smith or to 
Brigham Young, or to anybody else. I regard this as an 
oligarchy or a religious despotism that ought to be wiped 
out; but it must be done by law. If you can justify the 
transgression of fundamental principles of constitutional 
law in this case, you can do it in a hundred others. If 
the enormity of the crime that is to be stricken down is 
a justification for the transgression of law, then you may 
find it everywhere, and no rights are sacred. It becomes 
a question of prejudice, and of passion, and of hate. 

"I did say that this bill bristled with blood and with 
vengeance, and I repeat it, and I propose to show it. I 
propose to show here that there never was such a bill 
introduced in any legislative body in the world, and no 
such bill was ever enacted into a law, and that, too, when, 
by the report of the commission that we sent out there, it 
is evident that there is no necessity for this extreme and 
new legislation." 




Hon. CHARLES F. CRISP, 

OF GEORGIA. 




[HARLES FREDERICK CRISP, of Amer- 

icus, Georgia, is the Representative in the 
National House of Representatives from the 
Third Congressional District of that State. 
He is a native of Sheffield, England, where he was born 
the 29th of January, 1845 — his parents were then on a 
visit in that place. They returned to America the same 
year. He received a good education in the common 
schools of Macon and Savannah, Georgia. 

He entered the Confederate Army in May, 1861, as 
Lieutenant in Company K, Tenth Virginia Infantry. He 
served until May of 1864, when he was taken prisoner 
and confined in Fort Delaware. In June, 1865, when he 
was released, he returned to Ellaville, Schley County, 
Georgia. He read law and was admitted to the Bar in 
Americus one year later, and commenced j^racticing in 
Ellaville. He was appointed Solicitor-General of the 
South-western Judicial Circuit in 1872, and in 1873 was 
re-appointed for four years. He was appointed Judge of 
the Superior Court of the same Circuit in June, 1877, and 
was elected by the General Assembly to the same office 



in 1878. He was re-elected Judge for a term of four 



(398) 



I 



CHARLES F. CRISF. 3^9 

years in 1880, but in September of 1883 he resigned the 
office to accept the nomination for Congress. In April, 
1883, he was permanent President of the State Demo- 
cratic Convention which met in Atlanta to nominate a 
candidate for Governor. 

He was elected to the Forty-eighth Congress, and has 
since been a member of that body, to which he was 
elected as a Democrat. 

The following is an extract from a speech by Mr. Crisp 
on the "Missouri Pacific Railroad and Telegraph Lines:" 

"By the terms of the original charter the companies 
were permitted to dispose of their lands within three 
years, so as to defeat the right of individuals to enter 
upon and homestead thereon as they can on the rest of 
the public domain. In other words, unless the com- 
panies disposed of the lands within three years from the 
time of acquiring the right to them, then it was pro- 
vided that individuals might enter upon the lands and 
homestead there as they could upon other public lands, 
paying to the railroad companies instead of to the United 
States the cost of such proceedings. After the expiration 
of the three years mentioned in the charter, a question 
arose as to whether the companies had, within the mean- 
ing of the act, disposed of the land, or as to whether 
they were still open to settlement as the rest of the 
public domain. The companies, or one of them, within 
three years from the time it acquired the right to these 
lands, mortgaged them, I believe, for the sum of 
$10,000,000. The company claimed that the giving of 
the mortgage, or the exercise of the right of mortgage, 
was a disposal of the lands within the meaning of the 



400 OUR GREAT MEN. 

act, and that hence they were no longer subject to entry 
as homestead, but were practically and substantially dis^ 
posed of. 

"That question went to the Supreme Court of the 
United States, and the decision of that court affirmed 
and established the views of the railroads; in other 
words, they had disposed of the land. 

" Now, Mr. Speaker, the States and Territories where 
this land is situated, understanding from that decision 
that the railroad companies were in all respects owners, 
of this land, as any individual or any corporation is the 
owner of that to which he or they have a complete equi- 
table title, undertook to tax these lands. They have them 
assessed as in the case of other real estate within their 
Territorial limits. They imposed upon them such taxes, 
such burdens, as all other property of like character are 
required to bear. The railway companies claimed that 
the States and Territories had no right to impose a tax 
because the legal title to the property is in the Govern- 
ment of the United States, and that the sovereignty of 
the State or Territory could not be exercised to impose 
a tax upon property the title to which was still in the 
United States Grovernment. * * * 

"Therefore, you see, Mr. S2:>eaker, as regards this vast 
domain, this great number of acres of land which have 
been given to these corj)orations, they hold it, they control 
it, they exercise all the rights of ownership over it; and 
yet, sir, they escape the burden that falls upon every 
other species of property owned by every other indi- 
vidual in this country." 



Hon. THOMAS B. NORWOOD, 



OF GEORGIA. 




IHOMAS B. IS^ORWOOD, a member of the 
Forty-ninth Congress of the United States 
of America from the First Congressional 
District of Georgia, is one of the humorists 
of the House of Representatives. The following is a 
sample of Mr. ;N"orwood's style. These remarks are 
taken from a reply he made to Mr. Henderson, of Iowa: 
"My honorable friend the other day — and have I not 
the right to call him friend when he fought for me? — 
declared he had said nothing for the purpose of ruffling 
the feelings of anybody, and it was certain nobody could 
say anything that would ruffle his. 

" But I was speaking of the gentleman's expansive 
patriotism, and after its exhibition here a few days ago, 
and I imagine if Ben Lomond could be separated from 
the Grampian range and transported over the sea, as the 
gentleman was, and were set down somewhere in the 
middle of this country, we will say about the State of 
Iowa, how natural it would be for Ben Lomond to want 
to lie down and spread himself all over the United States 
and the Territories thereof, with a sublime disregard of 
the extreme attenuation of his form. 

(401) 



402 OUR GREAT MEN. 

''But, Mr. Chairman, we can not receive Ben 
Lomond. Scotland can not bestow upon us her Bruce 
or her Wallace, for they made glorious history, and 
their names are embalmed in the leaves that record the 
history they made. But she has bestowed upon us one 
of her choicest thistles; and, though its flowers have 
fallen, its thorns are still strong and vigorous. He with 
his patriotism can cover the whole of the United States 
and a small majority of the Third Congressional District 
of Iowa, and a very considerable part of himself. His 
love has never been equaled since the time of Robin 
Roughhead, who declared if he could have his own way 
there would be no widows, for he would marry them all, 
and there would be no orphans, for he would father 
them all. 

" The literature of Scotland has furnished us with an 
example that is a prototype, to some extent, of the gen- 
tlemen from Iowa. The ' Wizard of the North ' exhausted 
his genius in producing the character of Captain Dal- 
getty, whose chief delight and labor were to fight first 
upon one side and then upon the other, with equal valor, 
fidelity and enthusiasm. 

" But, Mr. Chairman, truth is stranger than fiction, 
and the character produced by Walter Scott is more 
than realized in the character of the gentleman from 
Iowa, because he can do what no fox-hunter has ever 
been able to do, that is, to ride upon both sides of a sap- 
ling at the same time, and to draw his sword in defense 
of both sides of his country, as he avows he did in the 
late war. 

"More than that, the gentleman, like a genuin* 



-..^^ 



THOMAS B. NORWOOD. 403 

'swash-buckler,' keeps up the fight after the enemy has 
disappeared ; and, like the bully described in Georgia 
Scenes, who was caught in the woods down upon his 
knees, swearing and rearing and gouging the earth with 
his thumbs, the gentleman from Iowa keeps up the fight 
and makes his solo performance here in order to demon- 
strate how he 'mout have fit.' 

"Mr. Chairman, it has been a rule of my life never 
to be outdone in courtesy or gratitude if it were possible, 
and as I feel under the profoundest obligation to the gen- 
tleman from Iowa for the declaration that he fought for 
me during the war, I shall now proceed to defend him 
against all comers. It has been insinuated here that the 
gentleman's speech the other day was made for a differ- 
ent purpose than for its eifect upon this House ; that he 
was speaking for the Third Congressional District of 
Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I repel the foul insinuation 
against the gentleman. It has been said even that he 
was speaking for the benefit of a successor w^ho is to fol- 
low him from that district. That, too, is a mistake, for 
how can any man possibly know who his successor is to be ? 

"Again, it was intimated that he was speaking upon 
the pension bill for votes, when we all know it was a 
widows' pension bill, and widows do not vote. These 
charges are all unjust, all false. The gentleman was 
actuated by pure patriotism, but it is of a very peculiar 
kind, in making that attack upon the South. His suc- 
cessor might be his political or his personal enemy, if, 
indeed, there be a miscreant in the State of Iowa who 
could be the enemy of a man who is as full of universal 
charity as a three-year-old doll is full of sawdust. 



404 OUR GREAT MEN. 

" But, Mr. Chairman, there is another, a better and a 
sadder reason than all of these why the gentleman was 
not actuated by any selfish motive. I desire to state 
here that I have made a diagnosis of the case of the 
gentleman from Iowa, and the conclusion to which I 
have arrived is that he is afflicted with a disease very 
common but almost exclusively confined to public men, 
the name of which was never known until discovered in 
the State of Greorgia. This discovery was interesting. 
An old lady was sick, and her husband had called sev- 
eral physicians to see her, who treated her without suc- 
cess. Finally a young friend of mine who had just 
commenced to practice was called in, and, understand- 
ing the situation as soon as he examined the case, he 
told the husband that he understood it perfectly. He 
knew the character of the disease at sight, and told the 
husband that the vox jpopuli had got down on her dia- 
phragm. 

" The gentleman from Iowa has a very marked and 
a very extreme attack of the '■ vox popidi.^ But, in order 
that we may understand the case better, it should be 
borne in mind that man is composed of two parts, and 
all other elements entering into his composition may be 
resolved into those two. One of these is love of himself, 
the other a love of his country. In order to shorten the 
formula we will call one selfishness and the other patri- 
otism. As long as the two qualities are in equipoise 
the subject is i^erfectly healthy; but whenever self- 
ishness begins to get a little uppermost it draws vital- 
ity from the other side, and the patient becomes very 
weak, the head becomes very much enlarged, while 



THOMAS B. NORWOOD. 405 

the thoracic region is very much emaciated. [Great 
laughter.] 

"That is the condition of the gentleman from Iowa. 
His case is one of the worst I have ever examined. He 
has what is called cerebro elephantiasis. [Loud laughter 
and applause.] And this disease has increased until the 
patient's brain is aifected. I have before me here a 
record that gives some of the symptoms of a patient suf' 
fering from that disease when it assumes the acute inflam- 
matory cerebro elephantiasis form. The difficulty with 
the patient laboring under the disease to the extent that 
the gentleman from Iowa has it is that when he attempts 
to say one thing that he means he says another, and here 
are some of the symptoms laid down in this record which 
show the character and extent of the disease. 

'Tor instance, if the patient is very eager to per- 
form an act he will say, 'I approach it with reluctance 
and hesitation.' If he has no delicacy whatever about 
expressing himself on a subject he will approach you 
and say he approaches you with a great deal of delicacy. 
If he is ready to tight — and that gentleman is always 
ready to fight — he will approach you and say that the 
tendency of his mind is to fraternity. These symptoms, 
Mr. Chairman, are undoubted. That is the condition of 
the gentleman to-day. I am sorry for it. 

"And now I will say, in conclusion, if the Congress- 
man from the Third Congressional District of Iowa will 
require David B. Henderson to move out of his way so 
the Congressman can see his country, the Congressman 
will be cured of this disease, and he will no longer be 
troubled with the acute inflammatory vooi: populi^ 

25 



> J 



Hon. NATHAN GOFF, JR., 

OF WEST VIRGINIA. 




ATHAN GOFF, Jr., is a native of the city 
where he now resides, Clarksburg, West 
Viririnia. Here he was born the 9th of 
February, 1843. He received his educa- 
tion at the :N'orth-western Virginia Academy, George- 
town College, and the University of the City of New 
York. After the usual preparation he was admitted to 
the Bar in 1865, and two years later he was elected to 
the State Legislature of West Virginia. He was ap- 
pointed United States Attorney for the District of West 
Virginia in 1868, and was re-appointed in 1872, 1876 and 
1880. In January, 1881, he resigned this position, when 
President Hayes appointed him Secretary of the Navy. 
He was afterward re-appointed District Attorney for West 
Virginia; he served but a short time, when he again 
resigned. 

He served in the Union Army during the late war- 
and attained the rank of Major. 

In 1870, and also in 1874, he was the Republican can- 
didate for Congress in the First District of West Vir- 
ginia, and was defeated by the Democratic candidate. In 
1876 he was defeated for Governor of West Virginia on 

(406) 




NATHAN GOFF, JR. 407 

the Republican ticket. He was elected to the Forty- 
eighth Congress and re-elected to the Forty-ninth Con- 
gress as a Republican. 

In a short sj^eech in the Forty-ninth Congress, on vet- 
eran bounties, Mr. Goif said: 

"Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the gentleman 
from Wisconsin surrenders much of the good that is in 
this bill when he asks us to strike out these two provisos. 
He concedes in the argument that the veteran soldier of 
the country should have the bounty paid to him accord- 
ing to the order of the War Department. If that be 
true, can he suggest any reason why a private soldier 
who enlisted and served prior to 1863 should not have 
the benefit of the law as it was written previous to that 
time, and as it existed at the time he enlisted? That is 
just and equitable to the soldier who became a veteran, 
and it is just and fair to the soldier who enlisted before 
the President called for his three hundred thousand more. 
Show me the difference, Mr. Chairman of the Committee 
on Military Affairs. 

" Now, as to the second proviso, why is there any doubt 
about it to-day ? Why is it that the soldier who was hon- 
orably discharged did not, in fact, receive the bounty pro- 
vided for under the act of 1863? 

"When the accounting officers of the Department 
came to consider the original order of the Secretary of 
War, and construed it in connection with this act of Con- 
gress, they held that only those soldiers discharged by 
reason of wounds received in battle were entitled to the 
provision in the original order. 



408 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



"I am not going to discuss whether that is right or 
wrong. Congress in this fourth section limited the pro- 
visions to discharges because of wounds received in bat- 
tle. There was no such provision in the order of the 
Secretary of War which I read, and under which these 
thousands of men came up in the hour of their country's 
need and marched to the defense of their flag. If Con- 
gress afterward used this language which led the account- 
ing officers to make this mistake, we men to-day repre- 
senting the people of this country, and I care not where 
those i^eople be — North, South, East or West — the people 
of this country should dare to do the right thing and not 
count the cost." 



--^VJ^^^^i-H^ 



Hon. THOMAS B. REED, 



OF MAINE. 




HOMAS B. REED, of Portland, Repre- 
sentative from the First Congressional Dis- 
trict of Maine in the Congress of the 
United States, was born in Portland, Octo- 
ber 18th, 1839. He received a good common-school edu- 
cation in the schools of Portland, and then entered Bow- 
doin College, in Brunswick, Maine, where he graduated 
in 1860. 

From April, 1864, to JSTovember, 1865, he occupied the 
position of Acting Assistant Paymaster in the United 
States Navy. Then completing his interrupted law stud- 




THOMAS B. REED. 409 

ies he was admitted to the Bar in 1865, and commenced, 
practicing in Portland. 

He was a member of the House of Representatives 
of the State Legislature in 1868-69, and of the State 
Senate in 1870. In 1870, 1871 and 1872 he was Attor- 
ney-General of Maine. He was elected to the Forty-fifth 
Congress as a Republican, since which time he has been 
re-elected each term, demonstrating how well he has served 
his constituents in York and Cumberland Counties, of 
which his district is composed. 

The following is a speech made by Mr. Reed on an 

appropriation bill appropriating $800 to purchase a yacht 

; for Hon. S. S. Cox, our national representative in Turkey: 

"I have not forgotten the man nor the occasion. 
[Referring to Mr. Hewitt in a former debate.] His prop- 
osition was diplomacy on wheels. His idea was we 
should have one grand mogul who should travel from one 
end of Europe to the other, and, with that easy facility 
which he himself possesses for acquiring all sorts of 
information and misinformation, should get thoroughly 
acquainted with the habits of the people of different coun- 
tries on a flying trip, and do business with them all at 
one salary. 

"That was a charming debate, but it meant nothing. 
It meant simply the Democracy was in opposition, and 
they chose that particular^method of manifesting it. So 
all these speeches I have heard for the last eight years, 
when the Democracy came into power, have not been put 
to the slightest practical use. 

" I can remember when my friend from New York 
[Mr. Hewitt] was convulsing this country on the subject 



410 OUR GEEAT MEN. 

, of free raw material. He never rose in his place, his 
mouth was never opened without free raw material 
issuing forth. But he has forgotten it all. The whole 
thing has passed from his mind. Now his particular 
point is tariff taxation. Why, sir, the other day he told 
us that the people of this country were reduced to such 
terrible straits by taxation that the limit had actually 
been reached, and that the good anarchists of this country 
could not stand it any longer; and yet for the honor of 
making the American flag steam ahead in that procession 
of representatives of the eifete monarchies of the Old 
World, he proposes to put on a people already burdened 
beyond the verge of human endurance what in my 
country is a large sum of money — the sum of $800. 

"Well, now, Mr. Chairman, do not let your mind be 
troubled by this thing; it will pass away like all the 
rest. Tariif taxation, free raw material, letters to Jay 
Gould in favor of protection, they all take their regular 
course like the old jingle, 'soldiers, sailors, tinkers, 
tailors.' It is the regular old song. That is what we 
have heard right along. And what the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Cannon] called the attention of the Democ- 
racy to was not, as the gentleman from Georgia supposed, 
by way of reproach. It was not for the purpose of 
reminding them of their old fame as economists. It was 
only to remind the Democratic party that they really 
never meant anything by it; and they all know it." 







M. 1E1I.I., 



Hon. DAVID B. HILL, 

OF NEW YORK. 




lAYID B. HILL was born in 1844, in the 
town of Havana, Chemung County, JSTew 
York. In 1864 he was admitted to the 
Bar in the city of Elmira. As a lawyer 
he was a success. In 1869, and again in 1871, he was 
elected to the State Assembly of 'New York. In 1881 
he was elected an Alderman in Elmira, and the next 
year he was chosen Mayor of that city. In the fall of 
1882 he was nominated for the Lieutenant-Governorship 
on the same ticket with Grover Cleveland, and was 
elected by an enormous majority. He served two years, 
and upon the resignation of Governor Cleveland, January 
1st, 1885, he became Governor of New York. 

During his first year as Governor, by several vetoes 
of bills passed by the Legislature, and the reasons given 
therefor, his ideas came quite prominently before the 
people. This was especially the case on the census bill, 
which he vetoed; and as the Legislature refused to pass 
any other bill, and adjourned, he called an extra session. 
The extra session amounted to nothing; but the fall 
elections proved that the people were with Governor 
Hill. He was nominated by the Democratic State Con- 

(413) 



414 OUR GREAT MEN. 

vention in September, 1885, as a candidate for Governor 
for the full term of three years. He was elected Gov- 
ernor by the people in November, 1885, by a majority 
of over 11,000. 

Governor Hill is very popular with the Democracy 
of his State. His name has already been mentioned as 
the national Democratic candidate for the Presidency. 
His executive ability no one can doubt. He was inaug- 
urated Governor of New York, the second time, January 
1st, 1886. As a speaker, he has great power. And as a 
politician, the mantle of Samuel J. Tilden seems to have 
fallen upon his shoulders. 

His inaugural address of January 1st, 1886, which is 
here given, is characteristic of the man : 

" Fellow-citizens : The ceremonies which you are wit- 
nessing to-day mark the forty-seventh inauguration of a 
Governor of this State. Its first Executive — that gallant 
soldier and eminent statesman, George Clinton — took his 
official oath on July 30th, 1777, at Kingston, in the 
county of Ulster. Strange as it may seem, he had been 
elected both Governor and Lieutenant-Governor at the 
same election. The Constitution of the State which had 
prescribed the oath which he took was adopted at Kings- 
ton on April 20th, 1777, in their old historic building 
known as the 'Constitution House,' but the oath of office 
was administered to Governor Clinton in what was 
known as the 'Senate House,' from the fact that the 
Legislature first assembled in it. At this time this build- 
ing had stood over one hundred years, and here, after 
taking the oath of office, Governor Clinton, in the garb 
of a general officer in the Continental Army, delivered 



DAVID B. HILL. 415 

the first executive inaugural address in the State of 'New 
York. The next day he returned to his command in 
the tented field. He was the only Governor of the State 
who has actually led its troops in time of war to battle 
for his country, and this he did in several important 
engagements, including those at and around Saratoga. 
He was then in fact, as well as in name, 'the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the State of 
New York.' After the surrender of Burgoyne he 
returned to the civil duties of his office. 

"The first Legislature which assembled after the 
Declaration of Independence in the State of New York 
convened in the 'Senate House,' at Kingston, September 
1st, 1777. Here George Clinton delivered the first 
Gubernatorial message in the State. He had left his 
command long enough to discharge this duty, when he 
returned to the field, leaving the civil duties to be dis- 
charged by Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt, 
who had accepted that office. Governor Clinton wsls 
returned to the executive chair by repeated election from 
1777 to 1795, when Governor Jay served for two terms, 
when Clinton was again elected for a single term, retir- 
ing in 1804. Distinguished, able and patriotic as was 
the career of George Clinton, all his successors down to 
1884 have exhibited the same patriotic spirit, the same 
conscientious devotion to their duties, that characterized 
his administration, and in all the history of our State no 
blot defaces the fame of one of its executive officers 
through a period of over a century. Most, if not all, of 
them came to the Gubernatorial chair amid the sharp, 
often bitter, antagonisms of party strife; but with the 



416 OUR GREAT MEN. 

close of the canvass in which each was elected the con- 1 
tentions of party gave way to the sober judgment of the 
j^eople, and they each became not Governor of a party, 
but the chief magistrate of all the people. 

"During the one hundred and eight years which 
closed with the administration of my immediate prede- 
cessor, the State has emerged from a thinly-jDopulated 
province, much of which was a vast wilderness, into an 
empire of itself, in which commerce, manufactures, agri- 
culture, the arts and sciences, internal improvements, a 
great metropolis and large interior cities have come into 
existence, until to-day over five millions of inhabitants 
form that which is justly termed the 'Empire State.' 

"A glance at some of the incidents and circumstances 
under which some of my predecessors assumed the Exec- 
utive chair or marked their administration may not be 
inappropriate upon this occasion. It was during the| 
incumbency of the first Executive that the State was 
distracted by the contest over the adoption of the Fed- 
eral Constitution. He was an active and earnest mem- J 
ber and the President of the Convention which assem- 
bled at Poughkeepsie in 1788 for the purpose of consid- 
ering that instrument. With honest and outspoken con- 
victions he opposed its ratification by this State with all 
his energy and ability; but when it was adopted by the 
small majority of three he gave the Constitution his 
unqualified allegiance, and on retiring from the chair 
and closing the proceedings he made a memorable 
speech, loyally acquiescing in the result of the Conven- 
tion. John Jay, who succeeded him in 1795 — the bril- 
liant, large-minded jurist and first of American states- 



DAVID B. HILL. 417 

men, the author of the State Constitution — entered upon 
the discharge of his executive duties amid the plaudits 
of the entire State. Yet, in less than three months, 
owing to the unpopularity of his recent treaty with 
England, the terms of which were unknown at the time 
he entered on his official career, he was burned in ef^gj 
in Philadelphia, New York and other cities in the State. 
But before his administration closed, by what Mr. Van 
Buren termed the 'sober second thought of the people,' 
he was restored in public confidence to more than his 
former popularity, and re-elected Governor of the State. 
"Six of the Governors of this State were what may 
be termed 'War Governors,' one of whom was George 
Clinton, who, as I have stated, led the troops of the State, 
of which he was commander-in-chief, in many battles of 
the Revolution. Daniel D. Tompkins, elected Governor 
in 1807, served continuously until 1816, when he was 
again elected, but, after a short service, he was elected 
Vice-President, and resigned the Governorship. While 
discharging his executive duties between the years 1812 
and 1816 the War of 1812 began and closed. The patri- 
otic course of Governor Tompkins made him the great 
War Governor of the times, and raised him to the very 
zenith of popularity — a popularity so brilliant it paled 
that of DeWitt Clinton, casting him and his schemes of 
internal improvement into the shade, a shade which was 
dispelled when the pomp and display of war had disap- 
peared and peace was declared. During the administra- 
tion of Governor Young the Mexican War opened and 
virtually closed. His famous war message, containing 
the memorable words, ' The country is invaded, the rights 



418 OUE GREAT MEN. 

of our citizens have been trampled upon, and I will sus- 
tain the country, right or wrong,' is a distinguishing fea- 
ture of his administration. 

" During the administration of Governor Morgan the 
War of the Rebellion opened. The history of that admin- 
istration is bright with the patriotism, zeal and ability 
with which, under his lead, the State of New York sus- 
tained an imperilled nation, and it closed in the darkest 
hour of the Rebellion. He was succeeded by that distin- 
guished citizen and j)ure patriot, whose name and fame 
are dear to all — floratio Seymour. Conscientiously 
opposed to the party in power, and to the administration 
of Mr. Lincoln, yet he upheld the cause of the Union in 
promptly forwarding troops to the front in compliance 
with the call of the President; in carrying out vigorous 
and practical war measures with such distinguished abil- 
ity and unselfish devotion that even the voice of party 
contention, at times bitter and unrelenting, was hushed, 
and the Legislature of the State, a large majority of the 
members of which were politically opposed to him, unan- 
imously adopted a vote of thanks, which was entered on 
its journals, where it stands as one of the marks of dis- 
tinction which embellished the administration of the ven- 
erated and beloved statesman now enjoying, in his declin- 
ing years, the repose and quiet of domestic life at his own 
hospitable home in Deerfield. Governor Fenton, his suc- 
cessor, during whose first administration the Rebellion 
closed by the triumph of the Union arms, was as distin- 
guished in his patriotic devotion to the cause of his coun- 
try as were his immediate predecessors. 

"The administration of several of the Governors of 



DAVID B. HILL. 419 

New York was characterized by changes in the Constitu- 
tion of the State, which in one case amounted to a new 
Constitution. 

" George Clinton was Governor when the Constitutional 
Convention of 1801 changed the number of Senators and 
Assemblymen in the State, and made marked innova- 
tions in the appointing power of the Executive, and, 
among other things, giving a council of apj^ointment equal 
powers of nomination to office. 

"It was during the administration of DeWitt Clinton 
that the Convention of 1821 was held. It convened at 
this city, August 28th, 1821, and w^as by far the most 
important jDarliamentary body ever assembled in this 
State — perhaps it has been exceeded by few in the Nation. 
The great statesmen and jurists who occupied seats in it 
have adorned the history of the State with unprecedented 
splendor. Among these were Kent, Martin Van Buren, 
John Duer, Ambrose Spencer, Samuel Nelson, Elisha 
Williams, and many others. Governor Clinton's message, 
transmitted to the Legislature January 9th, 1821, recom- 
mending the Convention, is one of the ablest productions 
of that illustrious statesman's pen. This Convention 
changed some of the most important and fundamental 
principles of our Government. During John Young's 
administration the Convention of 1846 was held, and this, 
too, was an important Convention, characterized by the 
eminent men of which it was composed and the impor- 
tant outcome of its labors, resulting in a new Constitution, 
which was adopted by a large majority of the people of 
the State. It was during the second administration 
of Governor Fenton that the Constitutional Convention 



420 OUR GREAT MEN. 

of 1867 was held, it beginning its session on June 4, 1867, 
and finally adjourning on February 28, 1868. Its pro- 
posed constitution, excepting the judiciary article, was 
rejected by the people at the election in 1869. 

"In Governor Dix's administration, the Constitutional 
Commission held its sittings in this city. The constitu- 
tion framed by the Convention of 1867 contained several 
provisions, the essential principles of which were felt to 
be desirable in the organic law, and among them was the 
clause forbidding the Legislature to audit claims, and the 
sections relative to public works and prisons. 

"Governor Hoffman, in his message to the Legisla- 
ture of 1872, had recommended that a commission of 
thirty-two prominent citizens, to be made up by selection 
of an equal number from each of the two great political 
parties, four from each judicial district, be created for the 
purpose of effecting a thorough revision of the Constitu- 
tion, and the Legislature accordingly authorized the 
appointment of such commission, which met at Albany 
December 4, 1872, and finally adjourned March 15, 1873. 
The work of this body, after some modification by the 
Legislature and considerable delay, was finally adopted 
by the people in 1876. 

" I have thus stated the principal changes made in 
the Constitution of the State and the administrations 
under which they were made. Three of the Governors 
of the State — George Clinton, Daniel D. Tompkins and 
Martin Van Buren — were elevated to the Vice-Presi- 
dency of the United States. Two of the Governors have 
been inaugurated Chief Magistrates of the Nation — Mar- 
tin Van Buren and my immediate predecessor, Grover 



i 



DAVID B. HILL. 421 

Cleveland. The latter, elected to the office of Governor 
of the State by an immense majority, entered ujDon his 
executive duties, which he fulfilled for two-thirds of his 
term, discharging them with such dignity, sterling hon- 
esty and painstaking efficiency as merited and received 
public approbation, and elevated him to the office of 
Chief Magistrate of the Nation, where, thus far in his 
administration, he has exhibited a wisdom and statesman- 
like ability which has largely increased the confidence 
which the people reposed in him. Nine of the Govern- 
ors — De Witt Clinton, Martin Van Buren, William L. 
Marcy, Silas Wright, John A. Dix, William H. Seward, 
Hamilton Fish, Edwin D. Morgan and Reuben E. Fen- 
ton — have represented this State on the floor of the 
United States Senate, and it is no afi*ectation to say that, 
with their eloquence and their high ability as statesmen, 
they were ornaments to that august body. 

"Such, in brief, has been the career, such some of the 
events which have characterized the administrations of 
my predecessors. Standing here, as I do to-day, in the 
light of these events, with the memory of these illustri- 
ous men before us, it is eminently proper that I should 
pay this deserved tribute to their honor and greatness by 
a recital of their distinguished services in behalf of the 
State and the events with which their names are indissol- 
ubly associated, to the end that their lives and official 
careers may serve as an example to those who follow them 
in exalted public stations. This is, in many respects, a 
fitting occasion for such a retrospection. It serves to 
deepen the sense of responsibility which the acceptance 
of this high trust imposes at this time. 



422 OUR GKEAT MEN. 

"Having spoken of the past, it may be expected that I 
should say something of the future. Upon the public 
questions of the day I have no sentiments to conceal, but 
the near approach of the legislative session, to which my 
annual message is to be presented, renders inappropriate 
their earlier expression. It is needless to add that I 
have no assurances to give or pledges to proclaim, ex- 
cept that the princij^les announced by me during the 
recent campaign are those which shall govern my official 
actions. 

"I assume this office untrammelled by a single prom- 
ise inconsistent with the welfare of the people. I have 
no other ambition except the faithful and conscientious 
discharge of its duties. Grateful to the people who have 
honored me with their suffrages, I enter upon the per- 
formance of the duties before me with a due sense of my 
great responsibility to the whole people, whose servant I 
am, and upon whose wisdom, virtue and forbearance I 
rely, with the hope that when my official term, this day 
begun, shall have ended, and I shall be permitted to lay 
down its burdens, I shall have done something to merit 
their confidence and approval. 

"My thoughts to-day turn to the great work of admin- 
istrative reform which lies before us. In this vineyard I 
am called by the people to labor. The cause is worthy 
of the highest ambition, the purest efforts and the most 
zealous advocacy of those who choose to serve it. To cor- 
rect existing abuses, to reduce the expenses of govern- 
ment, to abolish useless offices, to uproot official corrup- 
tion, to simplify the methods of administration, and to 
raise the standard of official integrity, are some of the 



DAVID B. HILL. 423 

features of the patriotic work in which all good citizens 
should co-operate. 

" I reiterate the sentiment and join in the declaration 
to the people of the State, in behalf of administrative 
reform, similar to that which was expressed years ago by 
Samuel J. Tilden to the people of the city of New York 
in resjject to municij^al reform: 'In your cause I will 
follow where any shall dare to lead, or lead where any 
shall dare to follow.' 

"In conclusion, permit me to tender to you — Justice 
Learned — my sincere thanks for the flattering terms in 
which you have seen fit to allude to the manner in which 
I have heretofore j)erformed the duties of the high trusts 
confided to my care. In part through the well-discharged 
duties of the executive officers of the past, to whom I have 
referred, the State of New York has approached that 
unprecedented greatness which places it first among the 
States of the Republic. It shall be my aim to still further 
advance its prosperity, to promote its welfare and to guard 
its honor." 




26 



Hon. poindexter dunn, 



OF ARKANSAS. 




OINDEXTER DUNN, of Forest City, is a 
native of Wake County, North Carolina; 
here he was born November 3d, 1834. His 
parents removed to Limestone County, Ala- 
bama, in 1836, and he received his early education in the 
schools of the neighborhood. He spent four years at 
Jackson College, in Columbia, Tennessee ; graduated there 
in 1854. Two years later he removed to Saint Francis 
County, Arkansas, where he engaged in raising cotton 
until 1861. In 1858 he was elected to the House of Rep- 
resentatives of the State Legislature. During the war he 
served in the Confederate Army. 

In 1867 he commenced the practice of law. In 1872, 
and again in 1876, he was placed on the Democratic Elec- 
toral ticket for Arkansas. 

He has been a member of Congress since the Forty- 
sixth Congress. 

Mr. Dunn is thoroughly a Southern in political mat- 
ters, but above all he holds the welfare of his State and 
of the Nation. On the subject of free ships Mr. Dunn 

said: 

"The contest to-day is, who can give the most 

(424) 



POmDEXTER DUNX. 425 

bounty? It is a game of national j)oker. France bids 
millions; Germany sees that and goes better; Italy, out 
of money, bad to go out of the game ; and we are asked 
to see Germany and France, and go better. There will 
be no end ; that contest will be fought as the original 
contest was fought to universal obstruction of commerce; 
This contest, if entered upon by all the nations, will be 
fought to universal bankruptcy of the tax-payers of the 
nations. We shall have a bounty-gatherer strapped 
upon the back of every tax-j^ayer upon this continent 
and the other continents of the world to be carried 
through life. That j)olicy must fail. The Secretary of 
State recognized the importance of the inauguration of 
this policy on the part of the continental governments 
of Europe, and called the attention of our consuls to it. 
Here is the report showing that it has produced, as I 
have before stated, an abnormal stimulus of production 
of ships and navigation until the world is overstocked, 
and we are becoming the chief beneficiaries of this com- 
petition, carried on at the expense of the tax-payers of 
those governments. 

****** 

" If my voice can reach my countrymen, let me say 
to them that the days of protection have passed. You 
can not protect any longer. You are face to face, Amer- 
ican labor, with the laborers of the whole world. Your 
home market is insufficient. Destroy our commerce 
with other nations, strike down our exports by high tax- 
ation, making exports impossible, and perhaps one-fifth, 
at least more than ten per cent., probably twenty per 
cent., of the present employment for American labor 



426 OUR GREAT MEX. 

ceases to exist. The surplus production falls like a 
blight upon that which is needed, reducing and destroy- 
ing its value, striking down enterprise, striking down 
industry, striking down commerce and all remunerative 
employment, and turning loose upon our country a mass 
of unemployed, dissatisfied, starving and desperate labor, 
Avhich will bear in one hand a torch and in the other a 
sword. That theory, that commercial policy, hangs over 
this country and over the labor of this country like a 
Damoclean sword. The wheat producer of the North- 
west is standing face to face with the wheat producer of 
India. England and the Indian Government have built 
already more than ten thousand miles of railway. 
They are building five hundred miles and more every 
year." 




Hon. abram s. Hewitt, 

OF NEW YORK. 




BRAM STEVENS HEWITT, of New 
York City, who represents the Tenth Con- 
gressional District of New York in the 
United States Congress, was born in Hav- 
erstraw. New York, the 31st of July, 1822. He was 
educated in the public schools of New York City and at 
Columbia College, where he graduated in 1842. In 1843 
he was acting Professor of Mathematics. He then pre- 
pared himself for the legal profession, and was admitted 
to the Bar in 1845. Soon after this his eye-sight began 
to fail him, and he thought best to leave the close appli- 
cation essential to the practice of his profession, and 
engaged in the iron business, forming the firm of Cooper 
& Hewitt, and establishing extensive iron-works in New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania. 

He was one of the ten United States Scientific Com- 
missioners who were appointed to visit the French 
"Exposition Universelle" in 1867. Mr. Hewitt made 
an extensive report on "Iron and Steel," which Congress 
had published, and which has also been translated into 
many of the foreign languages. 

Mr. Hewitt organized and has managed the "Cooper 

(427) 



428 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Union for the Advancement of Science and Art," which 
has afforded many educational advantages to the working 
classes, for whom it was especially designed. 

He was a member of the Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, 
Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Congresses, and was 
re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a Democrat. 

In his remarks on the Pension Bill Mr. Hewitt said: 

"Mr. Chairman, I do admit I do not understand 
this bill. I have been reproached, on a previous occa- 
sion, with having voted against an increase of pensions to 
widows. I could not plead ignorance on that occasion ; I 
knew exactly what I was doing. I knew that bill pro- 
posed to take away the hard earnings of some widows and 
give it to other widows. To me all widows are alike. I 
I am like Tony Weller — rather inclined to beware of them. 

"I was told, during my absence from the House, that 
I was attacked by some gentleman on the other side, and 
consigned to a very bad place. I am not quite sure I 
was not invited to take a trip to regions which are not 
pojiular inside this House or out of it. 

"I do not know how these regions are tenanted, and 

I trust I never shall know ; but, so far as I am concerned, 

if I exj^ect to keep out of them it will be by trying to do 

my duty frankly and fearlessly in this House. 

**♦*♦♦ 

" I know that men from the South are placed, by 
these bills, in a most embarrassing situation. They can 
not discuss them without having imputations thrust upon 
their loyalty, as I heard them uttered to-day, if the 
remark of the gentleman from Nebraska had any mean- 
ing at all. I confess I was stirred — if I understood that 



ABRAM S. HEWITT. 429 

remark — stirred with indignation that it should be made 
impossible for these gentlemen on this side to do their 
duty here and vote without having a reproach cast in 
their teeth. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I have taken 
the floor. Xo man can reproach me with want of loyalty, 
or my people with want of disposition to make sacrifices 
for those who suffered or made jDersonal sacrifices in their 
country's defense. 

"But the burden has become intolerable. It is time 
somebody may speak out here. I care not what the con- 
sequences may be to me personally ; but I warn gentle- 
men that we must stop depleting the Treasury of the 
Government of its contents, on one pretense or another, 
for the benefit of those who are not laboring for an honest 
living, or, if they are laboring for it, do not need the 
bounty we are so ready to pour into their laps. I say it 
in justification of the men I believe to be as generous, as 
liberal, as honorable as any men I have ever known in 
the course of my life. I have seen them come up and 
vote for these bills, vote for every measure of justice to 
the Union soldier; and, what is to be regretted, I have 
seen them forced to give their assent to other measures 
which, in the better days of this Republic, when the Con- 
stitution" was better understood than it is now, would 
have had no place here. I have seen them come into this 
House and advocate and vote for these measures, on the 
ground that it was the only way in which they could get 
back into the South any portion of the money for which 
they are so relentlessly taxed." 



Hon. JOHN SHERMAN, 

OF OHIO. 




|OHN SHERMAN, the eighth child of 
Charles Robert Sherman, was born May 
10th, 1823, in Lancaster, Ohio, His father 
dying when he was six years old, he was 
adopted by John Sherman, a cousin of his father, living 
in Mount Yernon, Ohio. He commenced the study of 
law in the latter part of 1839. Accepting the invitation 
of his brother Charles, he went to Mansfield, Ohio, to pre- 
pare for the Bar. He was a Whig, and lived in a section 
of country that gave him no hope for office. He can- 
vassed a portion of the State of Ohio for General Taylor 
in 1848. For some time following he devoted himself to 
the practice of law. 

He was elected to the Thirty-fourth Congress. He 
supported Fremont for the Presidency in 1856. He was 
re-elected to the Thirty-fifth Congress, and again re-elected 
to the Thirty-sixth Congress. In the Thirty-sixth Con- 
gress Mr. Sherman was candidate for Speaker of the 
House of Representatives, but finally withdrew. 

He was elected to the United States Senate March 
23d, 1861, and has been a Senator from that time to this, 
with the exception of four years, in which he served as 

(430) 



JOHN SHERMAN. 431 

Secretary of the Treasury, in the Cabinet of President 
Hayes. 

He is a brother of General W. T. Sherman, and what 
General Sherman is in military life, John Sherman is in 
political life. 

The speech of Mr. Sherman upon accepting the statue 
of President Garfield, from which extracts are here given, 
is only one of his many able efforts: 

"Mr. President, in selecting from among the illus- 
trious dead of the State of Ohio, the two most worthy 
to be represented by marble statues in the old hall of 
the House of Representatives, it seemed to the General 
Assembly of that State appropriate, first of all, to choose 
the statesman, soldier and President whose brilliant life 
and tragic death have made his name ' familiar as a house- 
hold word,' not only in every part of our country, but 
throughout the civilized world. His recent presence 
among us, his conspicuous services in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, the impressive ceremonies in this Capitol 
which within five brief years attended his inauguration 
as President of the United States, his long and patient 
suffering under a mortal Avound by an assassin, the elo- 
quent words of his nearest friend, uttered in the presence 
of nearly every member of this body, and within the 
Hall where both had gained their highest fame, make 
the duty assigned me seem superfluous. Still it may not 
be amiss to accompany the acceptance of the statue of 
James A. Garfield with a brief statement of the grounds 
for the affection and respect with which his memory is 
held by the people of Ohio. 



432 OUR GREAT MEN. 

"In principle he was in every sense a patriot. No 
narrow limit confined his allegiance, but the whole 
country was the object of his love. He did not favor 
any section, b*it freely extended the bounties of Govern- 
ment to every part. He was a lover of liberty, of free- 
dom in its broadest sense, not only of the person, but of 
thought and of speech. Though a member of the Disciple 
Church, he was catholic in his charity for all Christian 
denominations. He was a strict guardian of the public 
faith, pledged either to a citizen, a soldier, or a creditor. 
When that faith seemed to be impaired by the long sus- 
pension of specie payments, he was as earnest as any in 
demanding the fulfillment of a national duty, and rejoiced 
as much as any in resumption. A striking example, 
himself, of the benefits of education, he favored every 
measure to extend and enlarge the scope of both State 
and national aid to education. JSe was a Republican, 
not in the narrow sense of personal advantage, but 
because he believed that party could best advance the 
honor and prosperity of our whole country, and of every 
part of it. 

" During his last term in Congress he was elected by 
the General Assembly of Ohio as a member of this body. 
No one can doubt that had he entered upon this service 
he would have greatly added to his reputation as an 
orator and a statesman, already established by eighteen 
years' experience in the House. This was his cherished 
hope and ambition, frankly expressed to his personal 
friends, justified by his physical and mental condition 
and training, in the prime of manhood, his early and 
later struggles behind him as obstacles safely overcome, 



JOHN SHERMAX. 433 

with hope and health and strength all pointing to a long 
life of honor and usefulness. 

^f •F *F ^F ^* ^ 

"The people of Ohio, among whom he .was born and 
bred, placed his image in enduring marble in the silent 
senate of the dead, among the worthies of every period 
of American history, not claiming for him to have been 
the greatest of all, but only as one of their fellow-citizens, 
whom, when living, they greatly loved and trusted, whose 
life was spent in the service of his whole country at the 
period of its greatest peril, and who, in the highest 
places of trust and power, did his full duty as a soldier, 
a patriot and a statesman." 

On the joint resolution directing payment of the sur- 
plus in the Treasury on the public debt, Mr. Sherman 
said: 

"Mr. President, I do not intend to detain the Senate 
long, and I wish to regard this question precisely as the 
Senator from Missouri does, as a purely business prop- 
osition. 

" The joint resolution undertakes to regulate the fund 
for the redemption of United States notes. Hitherto 
that has been left to the discretion of the Secretary of 
the Treasury under certain limits defined by law. There 
are three reserves in the Treasury of the United States. 
These are not separated from each other, but still there 
are three independent reserves either j^rovided for by 
existing law or made necessary by the daily business of 
the Government. 

"First and chief is the fund for the redemption of 
United States notes and for the maintenance of sj^ecie 



434 OUR GREAT MEN. 

imyments. By this measure as reported from the Senate 
Committee on Finance, that is fixed at |100,000,000. 
Hitherto it has not been defined by express terms. The 
resumption act of 1875 authorized the Secretary of the 
Treasury to provide for and maintain resumption, and 
the first step was to accumulate in the Treasury a fund 
that would be amply sufficient to maintain resumption. 

"When this matter was discussed before the Com- 
mittee on Banking and Currency in the House in March, 
1878, the whole subject was considered with great par- 
ticularity. Mr. Buckner, a member from Missouri, was 
the chairman of the committee. That was at a time 
when the Department under the law was making prepa- 
rations for resumption, which was to accrue nine months 
later, and the question of the amount of reserve was the 
one mainly which was then considered. At that time 
the history of all the banking institutions of the United 
States and of the world was carefully and amply exj^lored 
and fully explained to the committee, and formed the 
subject of repeated interviews. It was shown that every 
successful system of banking which had been established, 
either by a government or by individuals, assumed that 
from thirty to forty per cent, in coin was the minimum 
reserve which should be maintained for the maintenance 

of specie payment. 

#*»♦** 

"At that time there were in the Treasury about 
seventy million dollars of gold coin, either the proceeds 
of bonds that had then been sold for the purpose of 
resumption, or surplus revenue which had accrued. The 
Secretary of the Treasury said to the Committee on 



JOHN SHERMAN. 435 

Banking and Currency that in his judgment, in order to 
prepare for and to maintain resumption upon a sure 
basis, it would be necessary to borrow fifty million dol- 
lars more of gold coin by the sale of bonds, and he stated 
his purpose to go to N'ew York the next week, if he was 
not prevented by the action of Congress, and would then 
raise by the sale of bonds fifty million dollars in coin, 
which he could do by selling four and a half per-cent. 
bonds at a premium. 

"At that time no one pretended that the amount of 
reserve should be less than |100,000,000. On the other 
hand, General Ewing, Mr. Buckner and others insisted 
that this sum would not be a sufficient basis for the main- 
tenance of resumption, but that the Secretary was under- 
taking an impracticable task, and produced evidence from 
the records of the Bank of England, and from the Bank of 
Germany, and from the Bank of France, and other author- 
ities, to show that the amount of reserve that I proposed to 
establish was not sufficient. I contended, however, that it 
Was sufficient, and mainly because the United States had not 
to provide against deposits which were fully covered by 
cash in hand, but only had to provide for the redemption 
of $346,000,000 of notes, widely circulated and in active 
use throughout the United States. 

" Upon that statement members of the Committee on 
Banking and Currency tacitly declared that they would 
not interfere with the plan proposed by the Secretary, but 
that he might take the risk, as the discretion was by law 
left to him to fix the basis of resumption. At that time 
there was no distinction made between what is called a 
working balance for the ordinary operations of the Govern- 



436 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ment and the reserve for resumption. At that time bonds 
were being called very largely, and continued to be called 
very largely, and it was known that there must be neces- 
sarily in the Treasury a reserve equal to the amount of 
calls to be made within a period of three months. At 
that time the law required, for a call of existing outstand- 
ing bonds, a notice of three months, and it was conceded 
that no Secretary could safely call for the payment of bonds 
until he had the money on hand to pay them. By existing 
law, however, under the three per cent, loan, the length 
of the call is reduced to thirty days. 

"So, upon the principles thus adopted and acquiesced 
in by all parties, a sum of money should be in the Treas- 
ury sufficient at the date of the call to pay the call when 
it matured, because, forsooth, no one can tell exactly what 
thirty days will bring forth. In addition to that there is 
absolutely necessary a working balance to carry on the 
ordinary operations of the Government. 

"Neither Congress, at that time,- nor the Secretary of 
the Treasury thought it wise to separate the various 
redemption funds, and it was concluded on the whole, and 
was announced as the j)olicy of the Administration, sub- 
ject to the ajDproval of Congress, that the aggregate 
reserve in the Treasury to include a working balance, a 
bond reserve, and the resumption fund, should be about 
^140,000,000, which was between thirty and forty per cent, 
of the whole amount of greenbacks outstanding, and that 
this sum was the lowest that could safely be adopted. 
That was founded upon the experience of all nations, our 
own among the rest, and it is adopted and acted upon by 
all commercial nations now. 



JOHN SHERMAN. 437 

"I was somewhat surprised when my friend from Mis- 
souri gave us figures awhile ago that startled me; but I 
happen to have before me the last number of the London 
Economist, which shows that to-day in the Bank of Ger- 
many, the Bank of England, and the Bank of France, 
which are really Government institutions, although they 
are owned to some extent by individual capital, their 
reserves are larger than that proposed by this measure. I 
find here in the Economist of July 17, 1886, the statement 
of the Bank of England. It appears that the circulation, 
excluding bank post-bills, of which there are not many, 
was £25,335,290— sterling, not dollars, but £25,335,290 
sterling, or equivalent to over $126,000,000. 

* * * * * • ♦ 

"!N'ow let us go a little further. I will show you that 
this amendment is founded upon the experience not only 
of other countries, but that it is founded upon our own. 
As to this $100,000,000, it would be wrong to tamper with 
that reserve thus established by the consent of all the 
branches of the Government, and sanctioned by the cur- 
rency act of Congress of 1882. This declares that when 
the gold coin and bullion in the Treasury is less than 
$100,000,000 no further coin certificates shall be issued, 
thus stopping the issuing certificates ; so that the hundred 
million dollars should always remain intact. It has never 
been proposed by Congress seriously to tamper with that 
reserve. This Government insists upon issuing its own 
currency, and is subject to the same law of redemj)tion as 
other banking institutions, and must provide the same 
safeguards. It can only maintain the credit and converti- 
bility of its notes by the same rules applicable to other 



438 OUR GREAT MEX. 

banks. Legal-tender laws and pains and penalties can not 
keep United States notes at par in coin, but this can only 
be done by redeeming them on demand with coin, and to 
make this sure the coin must be on hand. But the Sena^ 
tors from Kansas and Kentucky, and others, say that we 
do not want any such reserve as $100,000,000 — that |50,- 
000,000 will be too much, that $25,000,000 is enough. 
Experience is a better guide and counselor than they are. 
The whole of our financial system rests upon that fulcrum 
of solid coin. Not only would confidence in the bank cir- 
culation be affected by it, and the stability of our green- 
back circulation, but the whole financial operations of the 
Government would be disturbed by any serious reduction 
of this redemption fund. 

"You may say that men who have devoted their lives 
to this kind of business are a little too timid, a little too 
conservative; but that is the merit and safety of all 
banking, and no government ought to enter into the 
business of banking until it adopts all the conservative 
habits of other successful bankers. Even the United 
States is not exempt from this duty. Otherwise a Black 
Friday, or some other unforeseen event, such as has hap- 
pened in my legislative experience, would topple our whole 
financial business into ruin. I remember that in 1857 
we were here trying to distribute our surplus revenue 
just as you are doing now. We adjourned in March 
that year, and when we came back to Congress we had 
to borrow money to pay the salaries of members of Con- 
gress. These sudden changes may occur, and there- 
fore we ought always to be strong. 

"Now, let me go a little further to show that the 



JOHX SHEEMAN. 439 

Government of the United States is subject to sudden 
fluctuations in its revenue and expenditures. After set- 
ting aside this hundred millions as provided by law to 
protect our currency from depreciation, we must provide 
ways and means to pay our bonds and current expendi- 
tures. You must accumulate money for the call of bonds. 
The amendment proposed by the Senator from Iowa sim- 
ply says that you can not make a call for bonds until you 
have the money in the Treasury in excess of the call. 
You shall call $10,000,000 a month, but you shall not 
make the call at any time unless you have money enough 
to pay that call thirty days hence without trenching on 
the reserve of $100,000,000. Is not that a wise provis- 
ion? Otherwise, in order to issue a call of $10,000,000 
a month you might be compelled whenever your surplus 
rose above a hundred millions, according to one construc- 
tion — I think sen erroneous one — you might be compelled 
to call the $10,000,000. That is a doubt which is re- 
moved by the amendment. It is not to be presumed 
that the Secretary of the Treasury will call $10,000,000 
at a time. Here he is required to call $10,000,000 in a 
month, but he ought to do it in calls ten days apart. He 
ought not to make a call the first of the month, for that 
is the pinching time when other liabilities accrue. He 
ought to call, say, on the fifth, the fifteenth and twenty- 
fifth three or four millions to make up the amount in 
the month; but when he makes the call he must have 
the three or the four million dollars on hand, because 
he can not anticipate and can not take any risks that 
when the time comes he will not have the money. 

"I was caught that way once. In ISTovember, 1877, 

27 



f J ♦■ 



/ 



440 



^ 
V 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



when .tJongress met, they were going to repeal the 

resui^ption act. There was passed through the House 

in ^t haste a bill repealing the resumption act. It 

stdr/ped at once as by a clamp the sale of bonds. In 

ord^' to save interest, which was a very desirable thing 

to do, I had made a call of 110,000,000 in anticipation of 

/^e sale of four per cent, bonds. The call then ran for 
' i, 
CAinety days. The sudden action of the House stopped the 

f \operations of the Treasury Department, and we had to 
A"* pay that call out of the current revenues and some of it 
^^ out of the reserve which had been accumulated by the 
sale of bonds for resumption purposes. 

"Certainly, Senators do not desire, I do not say want, 
to put this Democratic administration in any worse pre- 
dicament than Republican administrations have been 
put in. I want to give them the same degree of confi- 
dence, the same degree of reasonable latitude and dis- 
cretion that has been given to others. Therefore, when 
you provide that you shall not make a call under this 
proposed law until you have got the excess on hand, you 
only make a provision which any private citizen would, 
make to be certain to have the money on hand before he 
offered to pay it, for when the call is made it must be paid. 
That is the only explanation needed of that provision. 

"But what more? Under the operations of the reso- 
lution as it came to us from the House, without providing 
any working balance in the Treasury, the Treasury would 
be compelled at the beginning of every month, especially 
at the beginning of every quarter, to draw largely upon 
the reserve, from |10,000,000 to |20,000,000. Here is a 
sitatement going back to 1876, running up to this time, 



JOHN SHERMAN. 441 

which shows that every provident Secretary would, in 
May, commence to provide for July. July 1st is the hard 
period of the year, because that is the time when a great 
many expenditures have to be made, new accounts and 
new appropriations have to be opened, and money dis- 
tributed to disbursing officers. The quarterly payment 
of pensions, amounting now to $18,000,000, has to be 
provided on the 1st of July, October, January and April. 
So with the interest of the debt and other expenditures 
that come due in monthly or quarterly payments. There 
has not been a period in a single year, by this statement, 
when the variations between June and July have not been 
as high as from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000. No one 
knows beforehand. When General Garfield died the 
shock and effect upon the public were so great that in a 
single month $30,000,000 was drawn from the Treasury, 
and the balance on hand was reduced to that sum. 

"Suppose you have no working balance over and 
above a reserve — nothing on hand but that. Under this 
proposed law, on the 15th of June, when a prudent 
Secretary, who had been accumulating $10,000,000 or 
$20,000,000 ahead to meet the payments to be made 
in July, whenever that amount went over $10,000,000 
would be bound to call the whole excess. That occurred 
this year. It has occurred while we have been here. In 
June the amount ran up, and in July the Secretary of the 
Treasury was called upon to pay more than $20,000,000. 
So if such a law had been in operation in June when the 
balance ran up high he would have been compelled to 
call, under the operations of the law, not less than 

,000,000, while on the 1st day of July following, a 



442 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



fact that he knew and had provided for, he would not 
have the money on hand to meet current j)ayments then 
due except by drawing on the gold redemption reserve in 
the Treasury. 

"So it is necessary to provide for a working balance. 
The great governments to which I have referred keep to 
their credit in bank thirty to fifty millions for this pur- 
pose. It always has been deemed necessary. It never 
has been denied to any administration, and unless you 
really intend to impinge upon and reduce this great 
balance-wheel of the Treasury, this $100,000,000 of coin, 
you have got to give the Secretary of the Treasury some 
leeway from month to month. This statement is shown 
by months. It shows that fluctuations and vibrations up 
and down, varying anywhere from $2,000,000 a month 
up to $30,000,000 a month ; so that under the operations 
of this joint resolution, taking it as it came to us, the 
Secretary could not accumulate money to meet the 
quarterly balances due on the first of each quarter. He 
would not be able to meet even the monthly variations 
that occur. The Treasury statements are made on the 
first day of each month, and on the 30th day of June the 
balances are the very highest in the whole year. The 
time when the Treasury statements, to which I shall refer 
in a moment, are made up, is when the amount on hand 
must necessarily be larger than at any other j^eriod of the 
year. They are made in view of what is to come on the 
next day. The interest on the public debt accrues on the 
1st day of July, so that $9,000,000 is to be paid out at 
once for that, and about $17,000,000 for pensions, together 
with the various appropriations made by Congress from 



JOHN SHERMAN. 443 

time to time. So it is impossible unless you give the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury some working balance that he 
could meet his necessary payments without drawing upon 
this great reserve. 

"Now, let us go a little further about this. What 
amount ought he to have? Some say $5,000,000. That 
would not pay one-third of the pensions due on a particu- 
lar day. Some say $10,000,000 ; some say $20,000,000 ; 
some say $25,000,000. For myself, I would have been 
willing to give him a discretionary power — not an absolute 

power, but a discretionary power. 

« « * * « « 

"What is a fair working balance, no man can say, but 
the Committee on Finance have placed it at $20,000,000, 
the very minimum which any Government of our popula- 
tion and wealth ever undertook to carry on its operations. 
The Senator himself showed that France has about forty 
millions, and Great Britain thirty odd millions of credit in 
the Bank of England. All I want to do is to give this 
Democratic Administration such a reasonable and fair 
balance as may enable them, with security and safety, to 
comply with the acts of Congress, made from time to time, 
aj)propriating the public money — no more and no less. 
Even the sum named, I believe, is rather less than, on the 
whole, it might be ; but there are other things that enable 
me to vote for this proposition. 

" One of the mistakes, I think, made by this Adminis- 
tration, was that the Secretary of the Treasury changed 
the familiar form of stating the public debt. In the new 
debt statement they count as accrued interest that which 
is only accruing ; that is, the interest accruing, but not due, 



444 OUR GREAT MEN. 

is shown in the last debt statement as $9,000,000; but this 
is counted as having accrued, when, in fact, it will not 
accrue, or become due, until September, when ample reve- 
nues will come in to meet it; and, therefore, I think the 
Treasury has a margin that way ; but I suppose this change 
was made to excuse their policy of coin and currency 
accumulation — I would not say to cover up a balance — but 
at any rate to be sure to be on the safe side. 

"Another thing they have done which was never done 
before in Republican times, they have failed to count the 
fractional silver coin as a part of the money of the country. 
It is not available for the payment of debts, it is not avail- 
able for the payment of appropriations ; it is only available 
for paying small sums when demanded by the people, and 
experience shows that, when paid out, it soon returns. 
The amount has now so accumulated that it is $29,000,000. 
If you would authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to 
recoin all that minor coin into standard dollars he could 
use those, or issue certificates based upon them ; but it is 
not counted. In one sense it is not an available asset; but 
all his predecessors got along by counting it. It is true, 
when I was there the amount was not so large as it is now ; 
I think it was about $12,000,000 to $20,000,000, if I remem- 
ber right; but we counted it as so much money on hand, 
although we knew it was unavailable, because that seemed 
to be the proper thing to do. It is money in one sense, 
and it is not money in the general sense for broad national 
payments. 

"I believe that the amount reported by the Committee 
on Finance is the very lowest sum that, according to the 
experience of mankind, it would be safe to provide as a 



JOHN SHERMAN. 445 

working balance; and I would be w^illing to give to the 
Secretary of the Treasury even more discretion. You need 
not be afraid he will abuse it. Great trusts like his are 
performed under the light, and are not likely to be abused. 
He has a public policy diifering entirely from that of my 
friend from Kansas about what is necessary in order to 
maintain the credit and power of the Government. It is 
an honest difference of opinion ; he does not conceal it. 

" Indeed, when Mr. Fairchild came before us, I could 
not but feel a kind of sympathy for him when he declined 
to give us his opinion of this measure, saying, at the same 
time, that heretofore this power had been left to the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, and it seemed that Congress did not 
desire to confer this power on the present Administration, 
or words to that effect, and he thought it was indelicate for 
him to give any advice. It seem.ed a kind of an appeal 
that you should give at least the same opportunities to 
carry on the operations of the Government that you had 
given to the Republicans who had preceded him ; and I 
believe it was a proper appeal to be made under the cir- 
cumstances. 

"This statement shows the average balance. If the 
fractional silver coin had not been deducted on the second 
day of January, 1880, the balance in the Treasury would 
have been $139,000,000, but deducting the $18,000,000 
the balance in the Treasury was $120,426,000. That is 
about the lowest. I certainly w^ould be willing to give 
this Administration that which Ave thought necessary at 
the time to give when the operations of the Government 
were even less than thev are now. Give him a mini- 
mum. First, there is the minimum of the redemption 



446 OUR GREAT MEX. 

fund. Let that stand intact. It is said that nobody calls 
for it. I hope nobody ever will; but dissipate that ful- 
crum and then you will find plenty of people to call for it. 
It is the basis upon which the whole thing stands. Let 
that stand as long as the pyramids stand, as the basis 
of $346,000,000 of our promises to pay. Senators say 
that nobody doubts the integrity of the United States or 
its ability to redeem the greenbacks. ;N"obody does now, 
but yet it is only eight years since these notes were at a 
discount, and within twenty years they have been at a 
discount of forty, fifty and sixty per cent. 

"If Senators will have the kindness to turn to Mr. 
Jordan's statement before the Committee on Finance, they 
will find there the reasons given by Mr. Jordan why this 
unusual balance had been accumulated. I believe there 
was probably a little too much timidity in regard to this 
matter, but still he makes a very strong statement to 
show that at one time the gold reserve had been re- 
duced to $123,000,000, and he feared that the great bank- 
ers and men interested in our financial system would 
entertain the fear that at some not far distant day the 
dollar which they held in their hands as the trustee of 
great properties would, by some sudden change, by the' 
dissipation of this gold reserve, be j^^y^^^le in silver 
worth seventy-four to eighty cents on the dollar. That 
was a fear. 

"How is this silver coin maintained at par with 
gold. It is said that it goes as good as gold everywhere, 
but why? It is maintained at par with gold just like 
your paper money, because it is redeemed, it is received, 
it is used by the Government in exchange for gold; but 



JOHN SHERMAN. 447 

if you once establish a fear in the minds of men engaged 
in large business interests that you will not maintain 
it at par with gold, then the silver dollar will fall to 
its market value. It will become the sole standard of 
value. If the Grovernment were to compel the people to 
take that which is intrinsically worth less than a dollar, 
then gold will disappear, and we will have contraction, 
hoarding, exportation and all the evils which I have some- 
times feared when they did not exist, just as people 
sometimes frighten themselves with imaginary dreams. 
Yet if you raise the impression that it is your delib- 
erate purpose to go on with this theory that the stand- 
ard of 412J grains of silver shall be the standard and 
purchasing power of the dollar, you must expect the men 
who not only represent great jorivate business interests of 
their oAvn, but re^Dresent the property of other j^eople, to 
take pains to protect themselves by securing gold coin or 
its representation. Whether you like it or not they will 
do it. It seems Mr. Tilden did it — I did not know that 
until it was mentioned by my friend from Kentucky — 
and other great bankers j^rotected themselves by buying 
foreign exchange. They will do that ; the self-interest of 
mankind will prompt them to do it. 

"But as long as you maintain your silver at par with 
gold, as you do now, and as France does with the utmost 
care and watchfulness, then there is no danger. I think 
our friends in 'New York have a little natural fear and a 
good deal of artificial fear in regard to that subject. I do 
not believe the people or Congress of the United States 
will ever bring us to a single silver standard. If they do, 
it will be a far greater calamity to the poor men of this 



448 OUR GREAT MEN. 

country, the men whose wages will be measured by this 
inferior standard, than it will be to the rich men, who can 
protect themselves. 

" To show that the fear at that time was not unnatural, 
let me take the total net reserve, as stated by the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, |179,689,862, including all forms of 
money, notes and coin, silver and gold certificates, and all 
other money except fractional silver coin ; the balance is 
1179,000,000. At this time we have in the Treasury 
82,980,559 silver dollars. We have in the Treasury silver 
certificates to the amount of |33,978,767. In all we have 
in silver, because the certificates are specifically payable in 
silver, $116,959,326. 

"Suppose we should now force the Secretary of the 
Treasury to pay out these silver dollars and these silver 
certificates, force them upon the people, whether they are 
willing to take them or not, refuse to pay gold, refuse to 
pay greenbacks, force out this $118,000,000, what effect 
would that have at once in bringing you to the silver 
standard ? I will allow every Senator to answer for him- 
self. Sir, we are only kept from meeting this possible 
calamity by redeeming and taking in this silver, and the 
very fact that the silver dollar is safely stored in the Treas- 
ury is the best protection to the value of silver. 

" I have thought all along — and that is another crit- 
icism of this administration which I would wish to make 
in all kindness — that they have not availed themselves of 
the legal power to use silver certificates in accumulating 
gold coin and bullion. I never could understand why that 
process was permanently stopped. There are four distinct 



JOHN SHERMAN. 449 

provisions of law which authorize the use of any money in 
the Treasury for the purchase of gold and gold bullion. 
We have in the Treasury $32,000,000 of silver certificates. 
This fall, when the demand for cotton and wheat and the 
other productions of the country begins to be active, the 
gold will come from foreign countries, because there is no 
balance of trade against us to settle. But few of our 
securities are held abroad, or if they are held, they are 
held firmly. The demand will come here for our natural 
productions, and I do not see then why the Secretary of 
the Treasury does not do as his predecessors did, buy gold 
to fortify the gold reserve. If he has any fear of the dis- 
appearance of gold, instead of borrowing a ridiculous sum 
from the bankers in order to suj^port his reserve, it seems 
to me he might have got gold in the Treasury in exchange 
for certificates. His predecessors bought eighty odd mill- 
ions of gold by silver certificates ; and why ? This money 
is brought here in the form of bullion or foreign coin, not 
immediately convertible, and not in form for ready use. 

" He has in his hands $32,000,000 of silver certificates. 
There is no reason why these should not be converted into 
gold. It is true the silver certificates come back for cus- 
toms, duties and for all other operations of the Govern- 
ment. Still, to that measure it would be a relief. As they 
come back they are paid out, if the state of the market 
will justify it. Why, you ask, do the owners of gold coin 
and bullion take silver certificates ? Because coin in any 
form, especially as imported, is not in an available condi- 
tion for use. If there was a tightness in the money mar- 
ket, or rather a scarcity of currency, then the issue of these 



450 OUR GREAT MEN. 

certificates for gold coin or bullion would supply an active 
currency, while the gold rarely is an active currency. It 
must be represented by some form of paper money, and 
the silver certificates will be received, sent down to New 
Orleans, sent West to the great plains, and there applied 
to the purchase of all the productions of the country for 
export abroad. In due time the silver certificate flows 
back into the Treasury, but the gold is there, and remains, 
while the certificate, in due course, may be again used to 
purchase more gold or to j)ay current expenditures, and in 
that way the reserve may be fortified. 

"As I said, this is not an administration of which I 
am any part or lot, but I want to be fair by it, treat it as 
I would our own. In proposing this amendment the Com- 
mittee on Finance, a majority of which is Rej^ublican, 
l^ropose to do by this administration what has been done 
by a Democratic Senate and by a Democratic House in a 
Republican administration, not to cripple the Secretary, 
not to compel him to do what his judgment condemns, 
but to allow him reasonable discretion. If there is any- 
thing clear, Mr. Jordan and Mr. Fairchild are firmly 
opposed to the House resolution. They said so to us. 
They gave us their reason for it. We thought, on the 
whole, that they were accumulating a greater reserve than 
was necessary to protect the public credit and the public 
interest, yet we did not feel justified in compelling them 
to go to the extent of dissipating the reserve as required 
by the House, which they regard as injurious to the j^ublic 
service, to the credit and public faith of our country. We 
therefore provided for this movable discretionary balance 
of $20,000,000. We put it lower than experience shows 



JOHN SHERMAN. 451 

has been required every year for the last eight or ten 
years. The fluctuation, the ebb and flow of the currency, 
demand this sum of money. The table to which I have 
already referred shows that even in ordinary times, at 
S2:)ecial periods of the year, increased payments in a single 
day must be made and must be provided for by previous 
accumulations equal to this floating balance. To deny 
it is to open the resumption reserve for ordinary wants of 
the Treasury. 

" There is another probable efi'ect of this measure to be 
noticed. My friend from Kansas and also my friend from 
Kentucky talked about contracting currency. There never 
was a more severe, harsh contraction of currency than is 
proposed by this joint resolution. How will that happen ? 
You call bonds. You ought to call them and pay them 
oif. You call them at the rate of $10,000,000 a month. 
When you call |10,000,000 of bonds, |8,600,000 of these 
belong to the national banks, and are the basis of your 
banking system. 

* * * * * * 

" When you pay for the bonds the banks are deprived 

of their circulation. They are compelled to gather in the 

United States notes and bring them to the Treasury, 

which assumes the payment of the outstanding bank notes. 

But the law of Congress is so firm and strong that every 

note of the bank which comes into the Treasury has to 

be sent to Washington, and here retired and canceled. 
****** 

" Still, all things considered, the Committee on Finance 
came to the conclusion that they would report an amend- 
ment which would require, according to the House pro vis- 



452 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



ion, about |50,000,000 to be retired. That is an enormous 
contraction. It seems to me that is far enough. I do not 
want to take the responsibility of going further. Indeed, 
I sometimes doubt whether, in interfering with the dis- 
cretion of the Secretary of the Treasury in regard to this 
matter, we have not gone too far. At all events, he ought 
to be left free to meet a possible emergency in the future." 




Hon. JOHN G. CARLISLE, 

OF KENTUCKY. 




|OHN GRIFFIIN' CARLISLE, of Covington, 
Kentucky, was born the 5tli of September, 
1835, in Campbell (now Kenton) County, 
Kentucky. He received a thorough com- 
mon-school education, and applied it in teaching in his 
native county and also in Covington. He studied law, 
and was admitted to the Bar in March, 1858, and has 
since practiced his profession. In 1859-61 he was a 
member of the State House of Representatives. In 1864 
he was nominated for Presidential Elector on the Demo- 
cratic ticket, but declined. In February, 1866, he was 
elected to the State Senate, and in August, 1869, he was 
re-elected. He was a delegate to the National Democratic 
Convention in New York in July, 1868. In August, 
1871, he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Kentucky, 
and served until September, 1875. He was alternate 
Presidential Elector for the State at large in 1876. He 
was a member of the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-sev- 
enth, Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses. He was 
elected Speaker of the House of Representatives of the 
Forty-eighth Congress, and was re-elected Speaker of the 
Forty-ninth Congress. 

(455) 



456 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Mr. Carlisle is a revenue reformer. This and the 
revival of American shipping, he looks upon as the most 
important questions before the people. In a speech made 
before he was elected Speaker, he said : 

"In the broad and sweeping sense which the use of 
the term generally implies, I am not a free-trader. Of 
course that is understood. At least it should be. I will 
add that, in my judgment, it will be years yet before any- 
thing in the nature of free trade would be wise or prac- 
ticable for the United States. When we speak of this 
subject we refer to approximate free trade, which has no 
idea of crippling the growth of home industries, but sim- 
ply of scaling down the iniquities of the tariif schedule 
where they are utterly out of proportion to the demands 
of that growth. After we have calmly stood by and 
allowed monopolies to grow fat, we should not be asked 
to make them bloated. Our enormous surplus revenues 
are illogical and oppressive. It is entirely undemocratic 
to continue these burdens on the people for years and 
years after the requirements of jDrotection have been met 
and the representatives of these industries have become 
incrusted with wealth. This is the general proposition 
on which I stand." 

In some remarks in the Forty-sixth Congress, on 
Internal Revenue, Mr. Carlisle said : 

"Mr. Chairman, for the information of the committee 
I will state briefly that this bill was prepared very care- 
fully after a full consultation with the Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue in relation to its provisions as far as he 
saw fit to express himself in relation to them. There 
are some j^rovisions in the bill which affect, to some 



JOHN G. CARLISLE. 457 

extent, the amount of money to be realized from internal 
revenue taxes, about which the Commissioner of Internal 
Revenue has expressed no opinion, preferring, as he said, 
to leave those matters solely to the determination of 
Congress. And I may say that, with the exception of 
two or three provisions which affect the amount to be col- 
lected from internal revenue taxes, there was no differ- 
ence of opinion, I believe, either in the sub-committee 
which prepared the bill, or in the main Committee on 
Ways and Means. There are, however, two, or perhaps 
three, sections of the bill which do affect the revenue, and 
about which there was some difference of opinion in the 
committee. One of them is a provision which, if adopted 
by the House, would exempt the distillers and owners of 
distilled spirits from the payment of interest at the rate 
of five per cent, per annum on the tax for spirits which 
remain in the warehouse or in the public custody for a 
period exceeding one year. 

"The whole amount collected from this source during 
the last fiscal year was less than $75,000. The entire 
amount of revenue from distillers, wholesale dealers, rec- 
tifiers, etc., was over $52,000,000 during the same period, 
so that the Committee will perceive at once that the 
amount of interest on the tax is comparatively a very 
insignificant matter. The Commissioner of Internal 
Revenue estimates that the amount to be collected from 
this interest during the current fiscal year will be about 
1150,000, and that that will probably be about the average 
amount in the future. 

" Those who are engaged in this business do not, there- 
fore, complain of the amount of the interest on the tax, 

2S 



458 OUR GREAT MEN. 

because, as I have already stated, it is a very insignificant 
sum, but it is the trouble in reference to the matter arising 
from the difficulty in adjusting the interest account every 
time a package or a few packages of spirits shall be with- 
drawn from the warehouses. It is of that they complain 
rather than of the amount of the tax. 

"There is another section of the bill which proposes 
to exempt distillers, rectifiers and wholesale dealers from 
the payment of what is commonly known as ten-cent 
stamj^s. These are stamps which are placed uj)on pack- 
ages containing the distilled spirits when they are removed 
from the distillery to the warehouse, and when the pack- 
ages are refilled by the rectifier after rectification, and 
when the packages are changed by the wholesale dealers. 
The original proposed to exempt also from the payment 
of these stamps the exporters of distilled sjDirits and of 
alcohol. But the Committee, having considered that 
matter, came to the conclusion that inasmuch as the 
exporters pay no tax to the Government and the Govern- 
ment is at considerable expense for storekeepers, gangers, 
etc., it was not unjust to allow the law to remain as it now 
is with respect to them ; and, consequently, the Committee 
recommended an amendment of the original bill, which 
will leave the law in force so far as those parties are con- 
cerned in that respect. 

"The Commissioner of Internal Revenue states that 
the whole expense of printing all the stamps used in the 
operations of the Internal Revenue Bureau is about 
$350,000, and that he thinks $75,000 is about the amount 
which it costs the Government annually to print these 
particular stamps, including those used by exporters. 



JOHN G. CARLISLE. 459 

The revenue derived from these stamps during the last 
fiscal year was about |290,000 or $292,000, according to 
my present recollection; so that this section of the bill 
will to that extent affect the revenue. 

"The next section, and the only remaining section 
which affects the revenue, is the seventeenth, which pro- 
poses to allow owners and distillers of spirits deposited in 
the warehouses certain maximum quantities on account of 
evaporation and leakage. The Commissioner estimates 
that this will affect the revenue to the amount of about 
11,750,000. The whole purpose of that section is to place 
the distillers and owners of distilled spirits in precisely 
the same situation with reference to the payment of the 
tax which the manufacturers of fermented liquors, ale, 
beer and porter, the manufacturers of tobacco, snuff and 
cigars, the manufacturers of proprietary medicines, per- 
fumery, cosmetics, playing cards, and all other articles 
subject to internal-revenue tax, are occupying under the 
law; that is, that they shall pay the tax to the Govern- 
ment only on the quantity which is actually sold and goes 
into consumption or is withdrawn for sale or consumption 
in this country. 

"Without entering now into any discussion as to the 
propriety of that section, I make this general statement as 
to its purposes and effects. When we come to consider 
the bill under the five-minute rule for discussion and amend- 
ment, I will be ready to explain to any gentleman who 
desires it the reasons upon which the proposed legislation 
is recommended." 

Here are also a few remarks by Mr. Carlisle on cele- 
brating the centennial anniversary of the treaty of j)eace 



460 OUR GREAT MEN. 

between Great Britain and the United States. The Inter- 
national Exhibition to be held in New York City in 1883: 

" I desire to call the attention of my friend from Isew 
York to the question of the power of Congress to incor- 
porate a purely local company in the State of JS'ew York. 
I dislike very much to make an argument against this bill, 
and will not attempt to do so, because I am not unfriendly 
to the object sought to be promoted by it; but it does seem 
to me that we ought to hesitate before we enter u^on a 
course of legislation which recognizes the constitutional 
power of the Congress of the United States to incorporate 
a company in a State, that company having no connection 
whatever with the oj^erations of the Government in any 
form. I do not understand that it has ever been con- 
tended that the power existed in Congress to create cor- 
porations, except in cases where the corporation itself was 
to become an instrument in the hands of the Government 
for the execution of some one of its delegated or implied pow- 
ers. I have never understood anybody to go beyond that, j 

"Certainly Mr. Webster, whose opinions upon consti- 
tutional law were supposed at one time to have some value 
in this country, always conceded that an attempt on the 
part of Congress to create a corj^oration having no connec- 
tion whatever with the execution of any of the j^owers of 
the Government would be unconstitutional and void. 

"The Su2:)reme Court of the United States, in an opin- 
ion delivered by Chief-Justice Marshall, who certainly was 
not disposed to restrict the powers of Congress, or of any 
department of the General Government, expressly held 
that Congress had the power to create the United States 
Bank, solely because that institution, when created, was 



JOHN G. CARLISLE. 461 

one of the instruments by and through which the fiscal 
operations of the Government were to be conducted; in 
other words, that Congress had no j^ower to create a cor- 
poration merely as an end, but as a means toward the exe- 
cution of some other power which had been conferred upon 
it by the Constitution. 

" I have before me the argument of Mr. Webster in 
that case, and the decision of the court, which I will not 
take time to have read ; but I desire to call the attention 
of the House, and especially of my Democratic friend 
from the city of New York, to this proposition, and to ask 
him to explain to this House upon what principle it is that 
Congress can create a corporation in the State of New 
York for the purpose of transacting business in that State, 
and having no connection whatever with the Government 
or with the operations of any of its departments. 

"JSTow, the question which I want to proj)ound to my 
friend from New York is, what connection the corporation 
which this bill projDoses to create has with the execution 
of any of the powers or functions of Congress, or with the 
execution of any of the powers of the Federal Govern- 
ment? I say, with Mr. Webster, that unless you can 
show this, you are bound to admit that an attempt upon 
the part of Congress to create such a corporation is uncon- 
stitutional and a manifest usurpation." 

The following is the closing address of Mr. Carlisle to 
the House of Representatives at the close of the Forty- 
eighth Congress: 

" Gentlemen of the House of Representatives : The 
work of the Forty-eighth Congress is now completed, and 



462 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the time has come for the performance of my last official 
act as the presiding officer of this House. I should do 
violence to my own feelings and be guilty of the grossest 
ingratitude if I should declare a final adjournment with- 
out returning to you, individually and collectively, my sin- 
cere thanks for the complimentary resolution passed this 
morning. I thank you also, gentlemen, with equal warmth 
and sincerity, not only for the confidence reposed in me at 
the beginning of our labors here, but for the respect and 
courtesy which have characterized all your personal and 
official intercourse with me since that time. 

" The membership of this House is so large, its busi- 
ness is so great, and the struggle on the floor for priority 
in the consideration of measures is so earnest, that with- 
out your cordial co-operation and support it would have 
been utterly impossible to conduct our proceedings in an 
orderly or regular manner. It is but simple justice to 
say that your support and co-operation have been promptly 
and cheerfully given in every emergency, and to that fact 
more than to anything else must be attributed whatever 
measure of success has attended my efforts to preserve 
order and facilitate the transaction of the public business. 
Yery few, even among those who are best acquainted 
with our legislative history, have an adequate conception 
of the increased labors and responsibilities devolved upon 
Congress by the events of the last quarter of a century, 
and none who have not had actual experience can fully 
apjireciate the difficulties attending the transaction of 
business in a body so large as this. 

"In the First Congress the House of Representatives 
consisted of only sixty-seven members — less than the pres- 



JOHN a. CARLISLE. 463 

ent membersliip of the Senate. Now there are three 
hundred and twenty-five, besides the delegates from the 
Territories. From the organization of the Grovernment 
to the close of the Twenty-fifth Congress, a period of 
fifty years, there were introduced into the House, as 
shown by its records, 8,777 bills and joint resolutions, 
while during the two sessions of the present Congress 
8,630 bills and joint resolutions have been introduced — 
almost as many as during that half century. At present 
each one of our principal general appropriation bills em- 
braces as much money as the whole amount of the net 
ordinary expenditures of the Government during the first 
nine or ten years of its existence, and the specific objects 
to be investigated and provided for in those bills have so 
increased that it has become a considerable task even to 
enumerate them, 

"Although this House has passed a larger number of 
bills than any of its predecessors, except, perhaps, one or 
two which sat for a longer time, it is not at all strange, 
gentlemen, in view of the facts just mentioned, that it 
should be compelled to leave unfinished a very large per- 
centage of the measures presented. It is evident that, 
unless some constitutional or legislative provision can be 
adopted which will relieve Congress from the considera- 
tion of all, or at least a large part, of the local and pri- 
vate measures which now occupy the time of the commit- 
tees, and fill the calendars of the two houses, the percentage 
of business left undisposed of at each adjournment must 
continue to increase from year to year. It is not reason- 
able to suppose that an alteration of the Constitution can 
be aifected, but it is worthy of serious consideration 



464 OUR GREAT MEN. 

whether a general law might not be enacted which would 
authorize the several executive departments and the 
courts of justice to hear and determine these matters 
under such rules and regulations as would amply protect 
the interests of the Government, and at the same time 
secure to the citizens a more expeditious and appropriate 
remedy than is now afforded. If this shall be done, time 
and opportunity will be afforded here for the deliberate 
consideration of those great public questions which the 
Constitution has committed to the legislative department, 
and something might be done to promote the welfare of 
the whole people without neglecting the special interests 
of any. 

"I congratulate you, gentlemen, upon the spirit of 
harmony and good feeling which has prevailed through- 
out your deliberations. It is true that wide differences 
of opinion have been developed, and the largest liberty 
of debate has been exercised, but each member has hon- 
estly endeavored to respect and protect the rights and 
privileges of his associates, and I am sure that no per- 
sonal animosities have been engendered that will survive 
the close of your of&cial relations. We shall part to-day 
better friends than when we met, and hereafter, I trust, 
we will all recall with pleasure the fact that we were 
associated as members of the House in the Forty-eighth 
Congress. 

"For my 2">art I shall always consider myself indebted 
to you for the highest honor of my life, the honor of pre- 
siding over the deliberations of the American House of 
Representatives — a legislative body which, while it has 
always respected the just authority of the Government, 



DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 465 

has never failed to assert the rights of the people. When 
it ceases to do either it will no longer be an honor to pro- 
side over it. 

" Gentlemen, renewing my profound thanks for your 
assistance, for your forbearance, and for the expressions 
of esteem and confidence which you have just placed upon 
your record, and assuring each one of you of my best wishes 
for his success in every honorable aspiration, I now 
declare this House adjourned sine die,'^ 



—■ *^=€*^- 



Hon. DANIEL W. VOORHEES, 

OF INDIANA. 




^ lANIEL W. VOORHEES' native place is 
in Butler County, Ohio. Here Mr. Voor- 
hees was born September 26th, 1827. After 
completing a good common-school education 
he prepared himself for Indiana Ashbury University, 
where he graduated in 1849. Two years later, at the age 
of twenty-four, he was admitted to the Bar. He entered 
at once upon the practice of his profession, and has won 
the enviable reputation as an able orator. 

In 1858 he was appointed United States District 
Attorney for Indiana, and held the position for three 
years. He was a member of the Thirty-seventh, Thirty- 
eighth, Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses. In 1877 



466 OUR GREAT MEN. 

he was appointed, as a Democrat, to fill the vacancy in the 
United States Senate caused by the death of Hon. Oliver 
P. Morton, taking his seat in November of that year; 
and was elected by the Legislature for the unexpired 
term and for the full term beginning March 4th, 1879. 

The Senator has been a very able and active member 
of Congress. The following are his views as expressed 
on the question of the Hot Springs of Arkansas. 

Mr. Yoorhees said: 

"Mr. President, I think this resolution ought not to 
pass, at this time at least. As I understand the situation 
in the Department, it is this: The Attorney-General of 
the United States has given it as his opinion that under 
the existing law the Secretary of the Interior may in his 
discretion extend these leases, or not. The present 
Attorney-G-eneral has given his opinion that the Secretary 
of the Interior may or may not, as he chooses, extend 
these leases. I am willing that that discretion should 
abide there, and I am not willing to take it away, for, 
after paying the closest possible attention to the remarks 
of the Senator from Arkansas, it seems to me his resolu- 
tion embraces the idea of confiscating all the bath-houses 
on the hotrwater reservation. I can conceive of nothing 
except an act of confiscation that would strike my mind 
as more unjust. There are bath-houses there with tens 
upon tens of thousands of dollars in them. I do not 
know but that some of them have cost their proprietors 
^100,000. There is one bath-house where each tub has 
cost the proprietors |150 to put it in its place, made in 
Scotland and inlaid with porcelain, the finest bath-house 
to-day perhaps in the world, certainly in the United 



DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 467 

States. If that man's lease is not to be renewed and his 
property is to be taken off that reservation, it strikes me 
as simply a sweeping act of confiscation. 

^F ^V ^F ^P ^V ^s 

"I am perfectly ready and willing to consider care- 
fully any measure of legislation that the Senator from 
Arkansas or anybody else will bring forward on this sub- 
ject; but I am not willing to make proclamation in 
advance as to what we will do. I am not willing to bind 
myself by a joint resolution to destroy the present invest- 
ment without any knowledge of what is to take place. I 
sa}^, with all respect to the Senator from Arkansas, and 
with a good deal of knowledge and experience of that 
locality, that a proposition to take the bath-houses off 
the ground where they are now, where the hot springs in 
many instances bubble into them from the ground, and 
then pipe that water to distant parts of the reservation, 
is simply to destroy it in my judgment. That is the way 
it looks to me. 

"I think the better way would be, if the Senator from 
Arkansas will allow me to suggest it, that some measure 
of legislation embodying the ideas we are expected to 
act upon should be brought forward, rather than this 
notification of what we are going to do, without any par- 
ticulars. 

"So far as my participating in this matter is con- 
cerned, I desire to say, and call the attention of the 
Senate to the fact, that every Senator is as much interested 
in behalf of his constituents in this Government reserva- 
tion as the Senator from Arkansas. It is a Government 
reservation in Arkansas ; but it is Government property ; 



468 



OUR GREAT MEX. 



it is public property ; it is there for the public welfare, for 
the general good, and we are all interested in the subject, 
for I have met as many people from New England as I 
have from any portion of the United States there having 
the benefit of these magical hot waters. It is really, Mr. 
President, the greatest sanitarium on the globe. I have 
met gentlemen and ladies both who have sought health 
in all the famous resorts of Europe, who at last have 
come there and found what they have sought in vain 
everywhere else; and the utmost care and consideration 
should be extended to this great interest." 



-■ -^^ 



Hon. WILLIAM M. SPRINGER, 



OF ILLINOIS. 




,ILLIAM M. SPRINGER, of Springfield, 
who rej^resents the Thirteenth Congres- 
sional District of Illinois in the Congress of 
the United States, was born in Sullivan 
County, Indiana, May 30th, 1836. He removed with his 
parents to Illinois in 1848. He entered Illinois College, 
but left there and went to the Indiana State University, 
where he graduated in 1858. The following year he was 
admitted to the Bar. In 1862 he was Secretary of the 
State Constitutional Convention of Illinois. During this 
time he was engaged in a lucrative practice in Springfield, 
Illinois. 



WILLIAM M, SPRINGER. 4G9 

In 1868 he left for a two-years' tour througli Europe. 
On his return, in 1870, he was elected to the State Legis- 
lature, and during the years he served he did some efficient 
service in that body, which was then revising the statutes 
of Illinois. 

Mr. Springer was elected to the National House of Rep- 
resentatives in 1874, and his long term of public service is 
in itself an acknowledgment of his legislative ability. 
His voice is frequently heard on the Democratic side of the 
House. 

Speaking on the Union Pacific Bill Mr. Springer said : 

"Mr. Speaker, we are told that this bill is to be of 
great advantage to the Government. In the report sub- 
mitted by the honorable gentleman from Ohio it is shown 
that under this bill the railroad companies embraced 
within its provisions will pay to the Government $3,757,- 
496 a year for seventy years, at the end of which time the 
principal and interest of the indebtedness due by the rail- 
road companies to the United States will be liquidated. 
Now, is this a good arrangement for the Government? 
That is the question before this House to-day. What is 
the present condition of things ? The railroad companies 
covered by this bill owe the Government to-day $109,000,- 
000. Are they able to pay it ? Will they be able in the 
future to pay this sum ? Does the Government have to go 
about looking for new securities in order to make this 
indebtedness worth its par value? 

"Mr. Speaker, what will be the condition of this coun- 
try seventy years hence ? What will it be at the end of 
eleven years, when it is provided the first payment shall 
be made ? 



470 OUR GREAT MEN. 

" I am speaking of payments under the law without 
any further legislation. I maintain, sir, this is a good 
investment for the Government. In eleven years from 
now the population of this country will have increased 
many millions, and that largely-increased population will 
be settled principally upon the lines of these several rail- 
roads. Seventy years from this time there will be, per- 
haps, 200,000,000 of people within the limits of the United 
States, and the vast plains of the West, which are now 
little better, in most places, than a 'howling wilderness,' 
will abound in wealth, and be seats of empire composed 
of many prosperous communities. 

" The Grovernment, therefore, to my mind, has a good 
investment in these roads, and ought to hold on to it. I 
desire to recur for a moment to the time when, in 1864, we 
held the first mortgage on these roads, and when Congress 
surrendered that first morgage, believing, in so doing, it 
was accomplishing a good thing in then helping these 
roads out of difficulty, thereby securing their rapid com- 
pletion. We gave them that great advantage then, but I 
hope gentlemen will pause before giving them now an 
advantage even greater than they had at that time. 

« « « Hi « « 

" In 1864, when the first lien of the Government was 
made a second lien, a great advantage was obtained by the 
railroad company. The action of Congress at that time 
has been severely condemned by the people of this coun- 
try. But if this bill passes, even a much greater advan- 
tage than ever attained heretofore will be obtained by the 
railroad companies. If we consider their indebtedness as 
worth its face and three per cent, interest, the advantage 



E. C. WALTHALL. 471 

in the seventy years covered by this bill amounts, as I 
have already said, to 175,000,000. The representatives 
of the people should consider well what they are doing. 
There is no necessity for this haste. Let us postpone con- 
sideration of this bill until December next, and in the 
meantime secure the investigation of the affairs of the 
railroad companies, which is provided for in the resolution 
to which I have already referred. Are we prepared to 
say, by an act of Congress, that the Pacific roads are enti- 
tled to a further bounty of $75,000,000 from the Govern- 
ment?" 



Hon. E. C. WALTHALL, 

OF MISSISSIPPI. 




IENATOR E. C. WALTHALL is a son of 
the "Old Dominion," having been born 
in Richmond, Virginia, April 4th, 1831. 
When he was seven years old his parents 
removed to Holly Springs, Mississippi, where he was 
raised and educated, receiving an academic education. 
Here also he studied law. In 1852 he removed to Cof- 
feeville, Mississippi, where he was admitted to the Bar, 
and commenced the practice of law. In 1856 he was 
elected District Attorney for the Tenth Judicial District 
of the State, and was re-elected to this office in 1859. 
When Mississippi had seceded from the Union, and 



472 OUK GEEAT MEN. 

joined the Confederacy, in the spring of 1861, he resigned 
that office and entered the Confederate service, serving 
as LieutenantrColonel, Colonel, Brigadier-General, and at 
the close of the war as Major-General. 

He resumed the practice of law at Coffeeville, Mis- 
sissippi, at the close of the war, and practiced there until 
1870, when he removed to Grenada, Mississippi. 

He was a delegate at large to the National Demo- 
cratic Convention in 1868, at New York, which nom- 
inated Seymour and Blair, and was one of the Vice- 
Presidents of the Convention. He was also a delegate at 
large to the National Democratic Conventions of 1876, 
1880 and 1884, and each time was Chairman of the Mis- 
sissippi delegation. 

He was appointed to the United States Senate as a 
Democrat by Governor Lowery to fill the vacancy occa- 
sioned by the resignation of Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, who 
was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President 
Cleveland. He took his seat March 12th, 1885. Gen- 
eral Walthall is a personal friend and law partner of 
Secretary Lamar. He was probably the Secretary's 
choice for a Cabinet 2:>osition from Mississippi. He 
stands at the head of the Bar of his State, is a brilliant 
orator, and will, no doubt, go to the front rank in the 
debates of the Senate. 

The Senator is a member of the Committees on Pub- 
lic Lands, Military Affairs, Manufactures, Education and 
Labor, and Civil Service and Retrenchments. In a 
speech delivered the 11th of May, 1886, on interstate 
commerce, Mr. Walthall said: 

"Mr. President, I have listened with much interest 



E. C. WALTHALL. 473 

to the discussion of the pending measure, and have given 
the subject some independent consideration. My deter- 
mination is to vote for this bill unless it shall be so 
amended as to make it more objectionable than when it 
came from the hands of the committee, though it does 
not, in some of its important features, meet the approval 
of my judgment, I feel sure it is not presented as a per- 
fect measure by its distinguished author, who has exhib- 
ited such marked ability and fairness in his patient effort 
to solve one of the most perplexing problems of the age, 
for his experience has taught him that those who have 
considered the subject most maturely have found in it the 
greatest difficulties. 

"If it were proven here to-day that railroad com- 
panies are not now oppressing the people in their deal- 
ings with them, I would still support any reasonable 
Congressional measure looking to their supervision and 
control, because of the undesirable fact that such oppres- 
sion, in the absence of legal restraint, is possible, and no 
adequate protection can be afforded by State laws. If 
we but consider how immeasurable the railroad interest 
of this country has become, how vast is the wealth, and 
how immense the powers of these corporations, the neces- 
sity forces itself upon us to set, if we can, some bounds to 
what they may do in their business transactions with the 
people of the country. Their lines to-day stretch out 
140,000 miles, and their ownership is estimated to equal 
one-sixth of the entire possession of all the people living 
under our Government. To this many millions are being 
added yearly by the construction of thousands of miles 
of new railroad. It has not been many years since all 

29 



474 OUB GREAT MEN. 

the railroad property in the Union was worth less than 
the amount of this yearly addition. 

" The people pay these companies over eight hundred 
millions a year for transportation, and the commodities 
transported run up to fifteen billions a year in value. It 
is estimated that eighteen hundred thousand men are 
employed in constructing and operating railroads. Some 
of these companies have more patronage to bestow than 
a Cabinet officer, and some of their presidents have been 
paid larger salaries than the President of the United 
States. Many of them receive and disburse vastly more 
money per annum than passes through the treasury of 
many of the States of the Union. The men at the head 
of some of them are among the ablest business men in 
the Nation. They have wealth to employ talent and 
power to command influence. They are organized for 
gain, and those who manage them, however just and lib- 
eral they may be as men, manage them for gain, and are 
influenced by the same considerations which control the 
managers of other purely business institutions. 

"Every interest in this country is dependent upon 
railroads; agriculture and commerce are especially at 
their mercy. With all this power in their hands no man 
can give a valid reason why these corporations should 
not be put under the wholesome restraints of the law, 
and the oppressive exercise of their power made impossi- 
ble. It is no answer to say that self-interest will prevent 
them from imposing undue burdens on traffic, lest their 
business may sufl"er by its falling off. If the burdens are 
possible, what objection can there be to the double guar- 
antee against them of both self-interest and the law? 



E. C. WALTHALL. 475 

The very tendency of power, lodge it where you will, is 
toward abuse, and railroad power forms no exception to 
the rule. I have no word of denunciation for the railroad 
managers of the country as a class. They are as worthy 
as the men of any other class ; they are just like other 
men, and it is because they are so and are influenced by 
the same motives that influence other men that I want 
their power placed under control. 

"The contest between the people and the railroad 
companies originated in, and is kept alive and stimulated 
by, the same motive in both the parties, and that the 
motive of self-interest. One wants the service for the 
lowest price, and the other demands the highest price, 
just as other men in other callings buy for the lowest and 
sell for the highest price they can. The instinct of gain 
is strong as it is natural, and we expect to see, and do 
see, the evidence of it in every line of trade, in every 
department of business, in every place of human indus- 
try, and in all the business dealings of men with each 
other. The merchant does not sell a barrel of flour for 
eight dollars if he can get nine dollars for it. JNTo more 
does the cotton-planter sell his produce for eight cents per 
pound if he can get nine cents. No tradesman, no pro- 
fessional man nor laboring man puts a lower price on his 
wares or his work when he can get a higher one as 
readily. 

" But in dealing with each other we have the advan- 
tage of dealing at arm's length, which is our protection. 
When the merchant charges a given price for his goods 
we are not bound to buy from him, as there are other 
merchants and other markets. Nor is he bound to pur- 



476 OUR GREAT MEN. 

chase our produce at the price we name. Nor is one man 
bound to employ or be employed by any particular man 
for service at a price named, there being other men ready 
to serve or to be served. But when we deal with rail- 
road companies we have not this liberty, though it may 
be true that we are not literally bound to ship our produce 
by a railroad if the price does not suit us. Practically, 
we are bound to do it or lose the jorivilege of marketing 
our produce, and thus we really have no choice. There 
is no other railroad in reach, or if there be, competition 
is destroyed by an agreement that the charges on both 
roads shall be the same. We have no voice in the con- 
tract; the terms are dictated by one of the contracting 
parties, and the other must accej^t or do worse. 

"Railroad terms, it is fair to say, are not always 
exorbitant; often they are not only reasonable, but ex- 
tremely low. For instance, during the New Orleans 
Exposition passengers were carried from the town I live 
in to New Orleans and back, about six hundred miles the 
round trip, for about six dollars, and at the same rate 
from other points, one cent a mile, when the regular 
price — itself quite reasonable — was three cents. 

"If the people had all the power, and the railroad 
companies none — if they could dictate the terms on which 
the companies should serve them — the necessity would 
be no less in that case than now to curb the tendencies 
of self-interest. 

"Is a corporation likely to be more liberal and con- 
siderate than an individual would be in like circumstances? 
I will not say that no man can be found so just that he 



CHARLES H. GIBSON. 477 

would work for us or sell to us as cheap if he knew we 
were compelled to have his labor or his property, as if he 
knew we could supply ourselves elsewhere entirely inde- 
pendent of him. Such men may have lived, and possibly 
do now, but it is not for such as these that laws are needed 
or are made." 



Hon. CHARLES H. GIBSON, 

OF MARYLAND. 




IHARLES HOPPER GIBSON, of Easton, 
Representative to the Congress of the United 
States from the First District of Maryland, 
was born the 19th of January, 1842, in Queen 
Anne County, Maryland. He received his education at 
Centerville Academy, Washington College, in Chesterton, 
and at the Archer School, in Harford County. He was 
in the insurance office of an uncle in Baltimore for two 
years. In 1862 he commenced the study of law, and was 
admitted to practice in 1864, commencing to practice at 
Easton. In 1869 he was appointed Auditor and Com- 
missioner in Chancery, resigning the following year to 
accept the appointment of United States Attorney for 
Talbot County, which position he held for three consecu- 
tive terms. 

He was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a 
Democrat. 



478 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Mr. Gibson has his opinions on civil-service reform, 
as he declared himself in the following speech : 

" Mr. Chairman, I shall not, in the few remarks which 
I have to submit upon this important provision, at this 
important juncture of our national affairs, inflict upon 
this House any dissertation upon the local politics of the 
State which I have the honor in part to represent, save 
to suggest that my colleagues have effectually settled the 
question of the Baltimore post-office in connection with 
the carrying out of the civil-service law in Maryland, 
and settled it, I hope, to their mutual satisfaction ; or, if 
not to the satisfaction of my colleague upon my left, set- 
tled at least to the satisfaction of those colleagues of 
mine who, shoulder to shoulder with me in November 
last, fought the battles of the Democracy; settled to the 
satisfaction, Mr. Chairman, of that element of the Demo- 
cratic party in Maryland which in November last put 
the stamp and seal of its condemnation by thirty thou- 
sand majority upon the 'spurious Democracy' of which 
my friend upon the left was then the ally and is now the 
champion. 

"Mr. Chairman, to another view do I now address 
myself, and that is to the suggestion which I have just 
made. Sir, if this Government of ours is a representa- 
tive goA^ernment, a government such as its fathers de- 
signed it to be, a government in which its powers are 
distributed among the people — if, in short, it be a gov- 
ernment of the people, for the people and by the people, 
then, sir, this interpolation and irrelevancy of civil-service 
reform can find no part nor lot in this administration. 

"And, sir, if, as I hold, the Democratic party typifies 



CHARLES H. GIBSON. 479 

and illustrates the very genius and essence of a repub- 
lican government — nay, more, sir, if the very pabulum 
and instinct of a representative government originated in 
the Democratic party— then, sir, that party to-day needs 
no light upon its pathway from such a squinting device 
as civil-service reform. Ah, no, Mr. Speaker ; the Dem- 
ocratic party needs no reform. It is to-day the embodl 
ment of reform. 

"Laugh, my friends on the other side, laugh! Let 
him laugh who loses ; he who wins is bound to laugh. I 
repeat, and I here throw down the gage, and I challenge 
the successful contradiction of the proposition that the 
Democratic party is to-day the embodiment of reform in 
all that conduces to the best interests of this great Amer^ 
ican nation. And that gage and challenge I maintain 
with my voice and my vote, and defend with all the best 
energies of my soul and body. 

"While I am radically opposed to the especial features 
under consideration of the civil-service act, I regard them 
as but features of an act which is unconstitutional and 
vicious throughout; an act which seeks to supplant the 
provisions of our very organic law ; an act whose tendency 
is to mar and to mutilate American manhood ! 

"It lays restrictions where no restrictions were in- 
tended! It applies tests which abridge the prerogative 
of every American citizen ! 

"I wish to be definitely and distinctly understood, 
Mr. Chairman, as making no arraignment of the Admin- 
istration. I stand by this Administration ! My section 
and my State stand by the President. We stand by him to 
cheer him with our voice and to uphold him with our hands. 



480 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



''The Republican party, in mellifluous utterances, are 
to-day praising the President for his civil-service views. 
' The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands 
of Esau.' I believe the President in good faith is acting 
up to the measure of his sense of duty and responsibility 
upon the platform of his nomination. 

"But the President of the United States is handi- 
capped by this measure. I want to see these shackles 
stricken off this Administration. I want to see the Dem-- 
ocratic party unhand itself of these alien influences by 
which it is shorn of its normal and legitimate strength. 
I want to see it relieve itself of a dubious and mistaken 
alliance with an exotic importation, indigenous and ger- 
mane to a monarchy beyond the sea! The civil-service 
plank has not fitness in the Democratic platform. I want 
to see that plank disjoined from the structure as marring 
and sapping its integrity." 




Hon. bichard w. townsend, 

OP ILLINOIS. 




llCHARD W. TOWNSEND'S early home 
was in Prince George County, Maryland. 
Here he was born April 30th, 1840. He 
went to Washington City when ten years 
old, and was educated in both public and private schools. 
During 1856, '57 and '58 he was employed as page in 
the House of Representatives, where, lad as he was, he 
received valuable training in matters relating to the 
welfare of the country. It was during this time he 
formed the friendship of Hon. S. S. Marshall, from 
Illinois. Following Mr. Marshall's advice, in 1858 he 
went "West and located in Illinois. During the first few 
years he was there he studied law; teaching school in 
the winter to pay his expenses. He was admitted 
to the Bar in 1862, and soon won a lucrative 
practice. 

He was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court of Hamil- 
ton County in 1864, and held the position for four years, 
when he was chosen Prosecuting Attorney for the 
Twelfth Judicial District of Illinois for a term of four 
years. In 1873 he removed from McLeansboro' to 
Shawneetown, his present home. Here he divided his 

(481) 



482 OUB GREAT MEN. 

time between the business of national banking and the 
practice of his profession. 

In 1864, '65, '74 and '75 he was a member of the 
Democratic State Central Committee of Illinois. In 1872 
he was a Delegate to the National Democratic Conven- 
tion at Baltimore. He was elected to the Forty-fifth, 
Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth 
Congresses as a Democrat. 

Mr. Townsend ably represents the Nineteenth Con- 
gressional District of the State of his adoption. 

On the Legislative, etc.. Appropriation Bill, Mr. 
Townsend said: 

"Now, I wish to speak for a few moments of the 
present administration of some of the bureaus of the 
Departments. Why gentlemen on the other side are so 
anxious to criticise the administration of the Commis- 
sioner of Pensions is to many a mystery. There are 
many members of this House who wonder why it is that 
whenever a pension appropriation bill or an ordinary 
appropriation bill relating to the Pension Office is under 
discussion an assault is made, if there is the slightest 
excuse for it, upon the administration of the Pension 
Office by Commissioner Black. Many are mystified with 
this; I am not. I fully understand the motive which 
prompts gentlemen on the other side to make these 
assaults. Some inquire, 'Why is it so?' A gallant 
soldier has been elevated to the head of the Pension 
Office — as gallant a soldier as ever faced a foe upon the 
battle-field ; he has demonstrated his loyalty and love of 
his flag by the wounds which to-day he carries, wounds 
which have never yet healed, although inflicted over 



KICHAED W. TOWNSEND. 483 

twenty years ago ; a soldier as faithful as any who ever 
fought under the flag, one who has been horribly 
mangled in both arms, one still painfully suffering from 
these wounds. 

"Why are these assaults made upon him? I know 
well the motive. Gentlemen who make these assaults 
feel deeply grieved because Mr. Cleveland did not 
appoint as Commissioner of Pensions some one who had 
served in the Confederate Army, in order that they 
might go before the people this fall and insist that their 
prophesies in a measure have been verified. These gen- 
tlemen know well that the stump orators of the Repub- 
lican party, and doubtless some of these gentlemen them- 
selves, have deluded and misled many a soldier from 
his allegiance to the Democratic party by asserting that 
if a Democratic President should be elected the Confed- 
erates would capture the Capitol ; that the Union soldiers 
would be in danger of losing their pensions; that the 
Confederate debt would be paid, and the negro would be 
enslaved. 

" Such demagogy, based on statements which those 
who make them know in their hearts to be false, has 
prevented the Democratic party in the North from carry- 
ing the elections in many Congressional districts. T^ow, 
because Mr. Cleveland, as soon as he came into power, 
appointed as Commissioner of Pensions a crippled Union 
soldier, a soldier beloved for his gallantry by all Union 
soldiers who love gallant conduct whether it comes from 
a Democrat or a Republican, these gentlemen are sadly 
disappointed in their selfish hopes, are angered, and are 
unable to avoid manifesting their disappointment and 



484 OUR GREAT MEN. 

anger by assaults on Greneral Black. By this appoint- 
ment the President has deprived them of campaign argu- | 
ments which they no doubt hoped would influence the 
votes of soldiers at the coming election." 



Hon. ARTHUR P. GORMAN, 

OF MARYLAND. 




jRTHUR P. GORMAN", one of the young- 
est members of the United States Senate, 
was born in Howard County, Maryland, 
March 11th, 1839. His advantages for a 
fundamental education were none of the best, but he was 
appointed a page in the United States Senate when only 
thirteen years of age, and there had am^^le opportunity 
for acquiring an education in matters relating to every 
portion of our Nation. His adaptability, his readiness 
and his amiability made him a great favorite with all. 
He was retained in the service of the Senate from 1852 
to 1866, at which time he was Postmaster. In Septem- 
ber of 1866 he was removed for having offended the 
then Republican Senate by actively opposing the en- 
deavor to impeach President Johnson. He was at once 
appointed Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fifth 
District of Maryland, holding the office till in 1869. In 
June of 1869 he received the appointment of Director in 



ARTHUR P. GORMAN. 485 

the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, and in Novem- 
ber of that year he was elected to the Legislature of 
Maryland as a Democrat. In 1871 he was re-elected, 
and elected Speaker of the House at the ensuing- 
session. 

He was elected President of the Chesapeake and 
Ohio Canal Company in 1872, and has been re-elected 
each year. He was elected to represent Howard County 
in the State Senate in 1875, and in November, 1879, was 
re-elected for a term of four years. In January, 1880, 
he was elected to the United States Senate as a Demo- 
crat, taking his seat in March, 1881. 

On the question of silver deposits, Mr. Gorman 
said: 

"The Senator from Louisiana, then, confines his 
remarks to the Treasurer of the United States, and yet 
he knows, and the country knows, that the Treasurer of 
the United States would not have ventured to take 
action on an important question like this, being a sub- 
ordinate officer, without the sanction and by the direction 
of his superior. The Senator from Colorado comes 
squarely up to the question, and he denounces the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. If there is anything Avrong in 
this transaction he is the responsible officer, and the Sen- 
ator from Colorado was quite right in naming the proper 
officer of this Government. He denounced him as one 
who has not been trained in financial matters — one who 
has not been accustomed to conduct the affairs of this 
great Department. 

* ^ # * « jK 

"Mr. President, I am not opposed to silver; but I say 



486 OUR GREAT MEN. 

to my friend, who represents a great silver-producing 
State, that the certain way to destroy that interest is to 
be constantly attacking gentlemen in high position who 
desire to be fair not only to the silver but to the gold 
interest — to be constantly bringing the matter up, trying 
to force the Government to discriminate in favor of one 
kind of money. I am not opposed to silver ; I believe in 
silver, and I believe in an honest silver dollar. 

" Why attack the Treasury officers for doing what you, 
sir, as a high officer in this Grovernment, sitting around 
the council board, knowing, as you must have known, the 
laws of the land, allowed to be done by the party to 
which you belong? You knew that your party, and the 
party to which I belong, in Congress, had not furnished 
sufficient clerical force at New Orleans to handle silver 
in large quantities. Then, why hold the new Adminis- 
tration which has just come into power responsible for 
the deficiency that existed when they assumed control? 

" The Secretary of the Treasury may not have the 
knowledge of the Senator from Colorado ; for, Mr. Presi- 
dent, the Democratic party has been out of power for 
twenty-four years. We have but few men in that party 
who have been trained in the Departments of the Govern- 
ment. That is a misfortune to the party, but I have no 
doubt it is good for the country that once at least in 
twenty-four years we may have some men brought to 
these great Departments without training in official posi- 
tion, fresh from the people, earnest in their advocacy of 
the best interests of the country, as they understand them, 
who will go on, regardless of these attacks, coming from 
both sides of the Chamber ; and, I am sorry to say, the 




ALBERT S. WILLIS. 487 

greater number of them coming from the side upon which 
I stand. Time will show that at least the Secretary of 
the Treasury is an honest man, who intends to look at 
the welfare of his country — a gentleman who came here 
with no desire for place. I think he is the peer of my 
friend from Colorado, or any other gentleman on this 
floor." 



Hon. albert S. WILLIS, 

OF KENTUCKY. 




LBERT S. WILLIS, of Louisville, Repre- 
sentative from the Fifth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Kentucky in the Congress of the 
United States, was born in Shelby County, 
Kentucky, January 22d, 1843. He received his early 
education in the common schools of the neighborhood, 
and graduated at the Louisville High School in 1860. 
He taught school for four years, and then attended the 
Louisville Law School, graduating there in 1866. At 
once commencing the practice of law, he has since been 
actively engaged with his legal duties. 

In 1872 he was engaged in the canvass of the State 
on the Democratic Electoral ticket. He was elected 
Attorney for Jefferson County in 1870, and held that posi- 
tion till he was elected to the Forty-fifth Congress. He 
was also a member of the Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, 



488 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses, to which he 
was elected as a Democrat. 

On the Labor Arbitration Bill Mr. Willis said: 

"Mr. Chairman, I give due weight to the argmnents 
which have been presented as to the propriety of this 
legislation. I am not fully persuaded that the interfer- 
ence of the Federal Government will helj) those whose 
weakness most aj^peals for help. I share to some extent 
the fear that the power now invoked with hope of relief 
and safety may hereafter become an instrument of danger 
and further oppression. But putting these doubts and 
fears aside, I shall vote for this bill. I vote for it, not 
as a panacea for the evils complained of, not as a solution 
of the problem of labor and capital, but as a step — it may 
be a short one — in the right direction. 

" INTor do I understand the fierce opposition which the 
opponents of this measure have manifested. Their bit- 
ter denunciations and declarations as to its character do 
not harmonize. 

"They all assert it is a very 'harmless' thing; and 
in order to demonstrate their assertion they proceed to 
pour out the vials of their wrath upon it. They ridicule 
it. They epithet it. They call it, as the gentleman 
from Ohio called it to-day, a ' Trojan horse.' They call 
it a 'fraud,' a 'trick,' a 'sham.' And my friend from 
Georgia, climaxing the whole matter, has even denounced 
it as a 'milk poultice.' 

" Now, I believe a bill which has called forth all this 
denunciation has some meat in it. I believe that it 
means more than those gentlemen claim. It is not 
because it is harmless, but because it looks toward 



I 



ALBERT S. WILLIS. 489 

the settling of the grandest problem of this or of any 
age, that it meets the opposition it does from some 
sources. 

"That problem is the problem of ages; a problem, as 
we know, on which was founded the French Revolution; 
a problem that has disturbed England, Germany, Bel- 
gium and every country of the world. But we need not 
look to other countries, or appeal to history, to illustrate 
the contest between labor and capital. Only the other 
day we saw the business of three great States paralyzed 
by a strike upon the railroad system of the South-w^est. 
Only a few years ago we found the military called out 
to suppress what was called a ' riot.' Thousands of work- 
ingmen out of employment — millions of property lost. 
These are the results which demand of the Committee 
on Labor attention. Answering that demand they bring 
in a bill, a bill that is now before the American Con- 
gress. If it be wrong, if it be inadequate, if it be a 
'stone' and not 'bread,' if it needs amendment, let the 
wisdom of this Congress amend it. If it accomplishes 
nothing, if it be simply 'harmless,' still let it be passed 
as at least a sentimental declaration that we feel for the 
woes of these men, and are willing, if we can, to remove 
them. 

"Sir, this hall has been called the audience chamber 
of the Nation. During the brief time I have been here 
I have seen standing at that bar all the great monopolies 
of this land. We have heard from the railroad monop- 
olies ; we have heard from the telegraph monopolies ; we 
have heard from the bank monopolies; we have heard 
from the land monopolies ; and to-day, in one of the com- 

30 



490 OUE GREAT MEN. 

mittee rooms of this House, you are hearing from one 
of the great telephone monopolies of the land. 

"All these, sir, have had their day in court; they 
have been not only heard, but heeded ; and now when 
this new organization, the Knights of Labor, called forth 
by these monopolies, comes, although their voice be but 
in a whisper, as this bill is, yet, for one, I shall listen and 
shall heed it, and shall hope that from it will come in 
the future better and more effective legislation." 



->H4^>^fH«- 



HON. GEORGE G. VEST. 

OF MISSOURI. 




EORGE O. VEST, one of the leaders of the 
Democratic side of the Senate, was born in 
Frankfort, Kentucky, the 6th of December, 
1830. He received a classical education, 
graduating at Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky, in 
1848 ; and in 1853 he graduated in the Law Department 
of the University at Lexington, Kentucky. He then 
went to Missouri and commenced the practice of law. 

He was a member of the Electoral College in 1860, and 

a member of the State Legislature of Missouri in 1860-61. 

For two years he was a member of the Confederate 

House of Representatives, and one year served in the 

Confederate Senate. 



I 



GEORGE G. VEST. 491 

March 18th, 1879, he took his seat in the United States 
Senate, to which he had been elected as a Democrat. 

Early in President Cleveland's administration there 
arose a controversy concerning the appointment of a cer- 
tain man as Minister to Austria. Upon this subject is 
given a few of Mr. Vest's remarks : 

"In reply to the assertion of Mr. Bayard that this 
Government would not permit the Government of Aus- 
tria-Hungary to make this objection — because, as a matter 
of course, it was simply a protest — Baron Von Scliaeffer 
informed Mr. Bayard that he was instructed by his Gov- 
ernment to enter into no discussion on the subject of 
religious toleration, that the Government of Austria- 
Hungary permitted entire liberty of conscience ; and then 
for the 'first time appears the allegation, to which the 
Senator from Connecticut has referred, that the meaning 
of the Government of Austria-Hungary was that the 
position of an American Minister who was wedded to a 
Jewess by civil marriage would be such as to deprive him 
of all social influence and diplomatic consideration at the 
court of Austria-Hungary. 

" Mr. President, it is very obvious that, with the in- 
direction of diplomatic correspondence and assertion, the 
Government of Austria-Hungary simply means to say 
that any gentleman who has married a Jewess can not 
obtain the position to which he is entitled in the court 
of Austria-Hungary or the society of Vienna, which is 
precisely the same thing, by reason of that marriage; 
that position has never been abandoned from the begin- 
ning to the end of the correspondence ; it is the salient 



492 OUR GREAT MEN. 

point throughout the whole ; and subsequently, acting 
upon that reason, the court of Austria-Hungary rejected 
Mr. Keiley. These are substantially the facts as they 
appear from the correspondence. 

''I do not propose to detain the Senate by elabora- 
ting the questions of international law which are involved 
in this matter. They are very plain and very simple. 
If the Government of Austria-Hungary had simply con- 
tented itself with saying that it had personal objections, 
as did the Government of Italy, to Mr. Keiley, then the 
Government of the United States, acting as it did in the 
case of Italy, would have recognized the right of Austria- 
Hungary to have made the objection, and Mr. Keiley 
would have resigned, as he subsequently did resign, and 
as he had before resigned the Italian mission. But when 
the Government of Austria-Hungary put its rejection of 
Mr. Keiley on the ground that his wife entertained cer- 
tain religious opinions, this Government was bound, in 
my judgment, by its constitutional provisions, by its tra^ 
ditions, and by the opinions of its people, to assert respect- 
fully but firmly to that foreign government that we can 
not for one instant admit the justice of any such objection 
to an American citizen. 

" I speak frankly and perhaps earnestly because the 
great political leader in whose doctrines I believe, in 
whose public life I feel an especial pride, is peculiarly 
the author of the doctrine of religious toleration in the 
United States. It is a singular fact, but nevertheless a 
fact, that, out of the thirteen colonies which achieved 
independence from the British Crown, prior to the Rev- 
olution there were but three that admitted liberty of 



GEORGE G. VEST, 493 

conscience to its fullest extent, and those three colonies 
were Rhode Island, Maryland and Pennsylvania. In 
the others there were statutes, for a number of years, of 
a stringent — I was about to say barbarous — character, 
including Virginia and some of the Southern States, 
against the right of any citizen to worship God accord- 
ing to the dictates of his own conscience, but he was 
compelled to abide by the dictates of the Established 
Church. Mr. Jefferson, in his autobiography, written 
when he was seventy-seven years old, gives a graphic 
account of the condition of affairs in Virginia when he 
returned after writing the Declaration of Independence. 
He found the Established Church with a licentious 
clergy, who were simply adjuncts of the great houses 
where high play and old Madeira rewarded complaisant 
ministry. 

" The first act of Mr. Jefferson when he left the Con- 
tinental Congress and became a member of the Virginia 
House of Burgesses was to attack the doctrine of the 
union of church and state, and assert the fullest right of 
freedom of conscience and religious opinion. In his 
autobiography, written when he was seventy-seven years 
old, as I have stated, he says this was the most terrible 
struggle of his long and eventful career. Against him 
were united all the great families of Virginia, almost 
without exception, and, more than all, the Established 
Church, with its ministers and laity, who resented his 
attack upon church and state as a sacrilege and as a per- 
sonal outrage upon themselves. So terrible was the 
struggle that the enmities which it engendered pursued 
Mr. Jefferson through life and assailed his memory after 



494 OUR GREAT MEN. 

death. Jefferson had been a member of the House of 
Burgesses of Virginia, of the Continental Congress, Grov- 
ernor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State, 
Vice-President and President of the United States, but 
in the epitaph, written by his own hands, to be placed 
upon the stone that marked his grave, were only the 
words: 'Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of 
the Declaration of American Independence and of the 
statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of 
the University of Virginia; ' and if there be one of these 
great achievements greater than the other, it was that 
which gave to every freeman upon this continent the 
right to bend his knee to the God of his own adoration in 
his own way. This principle, attacked now in this cor- 
respondence, is, as Mr. Bayard has properly said, sacred 
to every American citizen and the corner-stone of our 
institutions. I am glad that the Department of State 
has assumed this position, and I sincerely hope that it 
may receive the indorsement of both Houses of our 
National Congress." 




Hon. RICHARD COKE, 

OF TEXAS. 




llCHARD COKE, of Waco, is a native of 
Williamsburg, Virginia, where he was born 
March 13th, 1829. He received his col- 
legiate education at William and Mary's 
College. After graduating he studied law, and was 
admitted to the Bar when only twenty-one years of age ; 
and when not engaged with public duties he is energet- 
ically engaged in the practice of his profession. In 1850 
he removed to Waco, Lennan County, Texas, which has 
ever since been his home. 

When the civil war broke out and a call for troops 
was made, Mr. Coke enlisted as a private. He was 
afterward promoted to Captain, and served till the close 
of those long, dark years of conflict. 

When the war ended he returned to his home and to 
the practice of his profession. In June, 1865, he was 
appointed District Judge, and the following year was 
nominated by the Democratic party for Judge of the 
Supreme Court. He was elected and served one year, 
when he was removed by General Sheridan, who consid- 
ered him " an impediment to reconstruction." He re-com- 
menced the practice of law the latter part of 1867. In 

(497) 




■■V 



498 OUR GREAT MEN. 

1873 he was elected Governor of Texas by a sweeping 
majority, and in 1876 was re-elected by a majority of 
102,000, one of the largest majorities a Governor has 
ever received. He resigned early in December of 1877 
to go to the United States Senate, having been elected to 
that position the previous April, and was re-elected in 
1883. He has ever been prompt in serving the interests 
of his State. 

The following is a speech of Mr. Coke on ''Relations 
Between the Senate and Executive Departments:" 

"Mr. President, a discussion of the issue between the 
Senate and the President would be very incomplete with- 
out some reference to the constitutional power of the Pres- 
ident over the subject of removals from office. An 
affirmation in the most solemn form of the existence of 
the power in the President to remove officers without 
the advice and consent of the Senate was made in 1798, 
in the First Congress, after a debate the most noted for 
exhaustiveness and ability in the history of the Govern- 
ment. 'No man has been able since to say anything new 
or original on the question, the great minds engaged in 
that discussion having left nothing more to be said. If 
it had not already been done so copiously in the report 
of the minority of the Judiciary Committee, and in the 
speeches of those who have preceded me in this debate, 
I would quote from the great arguments of 1798 in 
defense of the power of the President as then settled; 
but this having been done so fully, I shall content 
myself on this point with a brief statement of my views 
without elaboration. 

"In order to a consideration of the proposition that 



RICHARD COKE. ,499 

the tenure-of-office law is repugnant to the Constitution 
and ought to be treated as a nullity, I invite attention to 
the partition of the j)owers of the Government among 
three great departments, the legislative, executive and 
judicial, in the following provisions of the Constitution: 
"'All legislative powers herein granted shall be 
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall 
consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.' 
(Article I, Section 1.) 

" ' The executive power shall be vested in a President 
of the United States of America.' (Article II, Sec- 
tion 1.) 

'"The judicial power of the United States shall be 
vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts 
as the Congress may from time to time ordain and 
establish.' (Article III, Section 1.) 

"Thus are divided all the powers possessed by this 
Government between three great independent and 
co-ordinate departments, which check and balance each 
other. The independence of these departments each of 
the other is a distinguishing feature of the Government 
established by the Constitution. One department makes 
laws, another expounds them, and the third executes 
them. A union of all three of these powers in the same 
hands, or of any two of them, would fill the definition of 
a despotism; hence their distinctness and independence 
from and of each other has been severely guarded in the 
Constitution. 

"The only mixing or commingling of powers in the 
Constitution is when the Executive may check the legis- 
lative power with the veto and require two-thirds of each 



500 OUR GREAT MEN. 

House to overcome it, and when a check is placed upon 
the power of the Executive in making treaties and 
appointing officers by requiring the advice and consent 
of the Senate. Subject to these exceptions, there is no 
commingling of j)owers except in the appointment of 
inferior officers, which may be vested elsewhere by Con- 
gress than in the President, but each great department is 
separate from, independent of, and co-ordinate with, the 
other; that is to say, all executive j)ower is in the Pres- 
ident, all legislative power is in the Congress, and all 
judicial power is in the courts. 

"The underlying question in the contest now pending 
between the President and the Senate is v/hether the 
power to remove officers is vested by the Constitution 
solely in the President, or in the President subject to the 
advice and consent of the Senate. 

"I here read the clauses of the Constitution bearing • 
upon this question: 

'"The executive power shall he vested in a President 
of the United States of America.' (Constitution, Article 
II, Section 1, Clause 1.) 

" ' He shall take care that the laws be faithfully exe- 
cuted, and shall commission all the officers of the United 
States.' {Idem, Article II, Section 3, at end.) 

"'He shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and 
consent of the Senate, shall appoint embassadors, other 
public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme 
Court, and all other officers of the United States whose 
appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and 
which shall be established by law ; but the Congress may 
by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as 



RICHARD COKE. 501 

they think proper in the President alone, in the courts 
of law, or in the heads of departments.' {Idem, Article 
II, Section 2, Clause 2.) 

"That the power to remove officers as well as to 
appoint them is an executive power, nobody questions 
or doubts. That it is absolutely necessary that the power 
to remove shall reside somewhere, and shall be exercised 
so that incompetent, inefficient, dishonest and corrupt 
officials shall be displaced, and good and efficient men j)ut 
in office, is equally unquestionable. No government can 
be administered without the exercise of this power. Yet 
the Constitution nowhere mentions it — indeed, is abso- 
lutely silent on the subject. It can not be assumed that 
the great masters of the science of government who 
framed the Constitution overlooked or omitted this abso- 
lutely necessary power. They provided for filling the 
offices, vesting in the President the power to appoint, by 
and with the advice and consent of the Senate. 

" This mingling of the executive with the power of one 
of the branches of the legislative department of the Gov- 
erment is a notable exception to the well-guarded sep- 
aration and distinctness preserved, with but one other 
exception, to wit: the treaty-making power between the 
executive and legislative departments. By all the rules 
of construction this exception must be strictly construed, 
must be restricted to the plain and reasonable meaning 
of its terms, and must not be extended to embrace more 
than those terms imply. The President's power to appoint 
is subject to the * advice and consent of the Senate,' because 
the Constitution so provides; but the Constitution does 
not provide for the advice and consent of the Senate to 



502 OUR GREAT MEN. 

removals from office. Without this provision in the Con- 
stitution nobody would doubt the power of the President, 
at will, to appoint and to remove all officers (except judges), 
because the power of apj^ointment and of removal of offi- 
cers is purely an executive power, and all executive power 
is expressly, by the Constitution, vested in the President. 
" The advice and consent of the Senate to the exercise 
of the 230wer of appointment by the President is a check 
upon, a restriction and qualification of, the general execu- 
tive power vested in the President. It can readily be seen 
that this was deemed necessary, because it would be 
impossible for the President, from his personal knowledge, 
to select officers, throughout the broad expanse of this 
country, for the execution of the laws; and the Senate, 
composed of men of high character, coming from every 
State in the Union, could properly be presumed to pos- 
sess the knowledge necessarily wanting in the President 
in this regard. It may, too, have been thought that a 
check upon the power of appointment was necessary to 
curb the power of an ambitious man in the office of Presi- 
dent. But no such check has been placed in the Consti- 
tution upon the power of removal, confessedly in the 
absence of any qualifying provision, embraced in the grant 
of all executive power to the President. It would seem 
that the familiar maxim, ''Expressio unis exclusio alter ms 
est,'' is eminently applicable here. When we look for the 
reason of the failure of the Constitution to qualify the 
power of removal vested in the President in the general 
grant of all executive power, as it qualifies the Presi- 
dent's power of apj)ointment, we find it strong, clear and 
abundant. 



EICHARD COKE. 503 

" The President ' shall take care that the laws be faith- 
fully executed.' How can he correct mistakes in making 
appointments without the power of removal? How can 
he exercise supervision and control over his official agents, 
appointed for the enforcement of the laws, without the 
power of removal of dishonest, incompetent and inefficient 
officers ? How can he carry out the policies which have 
received the indorsement and approval of the people in 
his election without agents in harmony with his purposes, 
and how can he have these without the power of removal ? 
Ought the President to be held responsible, as he is, by 
the express terms of the Constitution, for the faithful exe< 
cution of the laws unless invested with the power to 
remove faithless official agents? 

''Is the Senate responsible for the enforcement of the 
laws ? Not at all ; that responsibility is placed on the 
President, and on him alone. Can he execute the injunc- 
tion of the Constitution, that he shall 'take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed,' with a hostile Senate sus- 
taining the official instrumentalities furnished him by the 
Constitution to carry out its injunction, in opposition to 
him, and to his purposes and policies ? Most clearly he 
can not. With the power of removal vested in the Pres- 
ident, he can justly be held responsible for a faithful 
execution of the laws, while if in the President and 
Senate nobody is responsible, because when the respon- 
sibility is divided out between the Senators and Presi- 
dent, as has been truly said, the share of each is so small 
as to amount to no responsibility at all. A knowledge 
of the faithlessness or inefficiency of officers, requiring 
their removal, is peculiarly within the province of the 



504 OUR GREAT MEN. 

President, whose duty it is to supervise and superintend 
them in the discharge of their respective functions, and 
outside of the province or cognizance of the Senate. 
Every consideration of reason sustains that construction 
of the Constitution suggested by its terms and the nec- 
essary implications from them. 

" I will here read some passages from the opinion of 
Chief Justice Marshall in the noted case of Marhury vs. 
Madison, reported in 1 Cranch, which throws much light 
on this subject, and which by common consent, from the 
day of its delivery to this hour, expresses the proper 
view of the questions discussed. In that case Chief 
Justice Marshall said: 

" ' These are the clauses of the Constitution and laws 
of the United States which affect this part of the case. 
They seem to contemplate three distinct operations : 
(1) The nomination. This is the sole act of the Presi- 
dent, and is completely voluntary. (2) The appoint- 
ment. This is also the act of the President, and is also 
a voluntary act, though it can only be performed by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate. (3) The 
commission. * * * This is an appointment made 
by the President, by and with the advice and consent 
of the Senate, and is evidenced by no act but the com- 
mission itself. In such a case, therefore, the commission 
and the appointment seem inseparable; it being almost 
impossible to show an appointment otherwise than by 
proving the existence of a commission. Still, the com- 
mission is not necessarily the appointment, though con- 
clusive evidence of it. * * * The appointment being 
the sole act of the President, must be completely evi- 



RICHARD COKE. 505 

denced when he has shown that he has done everything 

to be performed by him. 

« * * * * # * . 

'"The last act to be done by the President is the 
signing of the commission. He has then acted on the 
advice and consent of the Senate to his own nomination. 
The time for deliberation has then passed. He has 
decided. His judgment on the advice and consent of the 
Senate concurring with his nomination has been made, 
and the officer is appointed. This appointment is evi- 
denced by an open, unequivocal act. * * * That 
point of time must be when the constitutional power of 
appointment has been exercised; and this power has 
been exercised when the last act required from the person 
possessing the power has been performed. This last act 
is the signing of the commission. * * * The trans- 
mission of the commission is a practice directed by con- 
venience, but not by law. It can not, therefore, be nec- 
essary to constitute the appointment which must precede 
it, and which is the mere act of the President. * * * 
The appointment is the sole act of the President; the 
acceptance is the sole act of the officer, and is, in plain 
common sense, posterior to the appointment.' 

"The President nominates; the Senate consents to 
the nomination or refuses to assent to it. If the latter, 
the President may nominate the same person again and 
again, as often as he is rejected, as was repeatedly done 
by General Jackson. The President alone can suggest a 
person for appointment. The sole power and office of 
the Senate is to consent or refuse its assent to the ap- 
pointment of the person named by the President. If 



506 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the Senate consents to a nomination, or, in common par- 
lance, confirms it, it still rests in the discretion of the 
President to appoint the person thus confirmed or not. 
He may refuse to appoint, notwithstanding the consent 
of the Senate, and nominate another and difi'erent person 
for the 2)lace. It will be noted that this power, this dis- 
cretion, of the President, to appoint or not, as he chooses, 
remains in him after the Senate has exhausted all its 
power over the subject, and has nothing further to do 
with it, because it has confirmed the nomination, and 
that is the end of the power of the Senate over it. 

" The other act to be performed is purely executive, 
and is the voluntary act of the President, to be jierformed 
or not as he determines, and that is the issuance of the 
commission, the only evidence of the appointment. If, 
after the Senate has confirmed the nomination, and has 
exhausted its power over the subject, the President dis- 
covers that he has made a mistake in nominating the 
man, or for any other reason deems it his duty not 
to commission him, he has the admitted right to 
refuse to do so. Having this right before the issuance 
of the commission, how can that ^^urely voluntary act, 
with which the Senate has nothing to do, dej^rive the 
President of the j^ower possessed before it was per- 
formed, of correcting his mistake in making the nomina- 
tion without consultation with or the consent of the 
Senate ? 

" I confess, Mr. President, that I am unable to per- 
ceive, when the whole matter rests in the discretion of 
the President, after the Senate has exhausted its power 
over the subject, how a purely voluntary executive act, 



RICHARD COKE. 507 

such as the issuance of a commission, can have the effect 
of reviving the exhausted jurisdiction of the Senate, and 
reattaching it to the subject, so as to compel the Presi- 
dent to ask the Senate's consent to a removal. I can 
imagine no reason why the discretion to appoint or not 
to appoint, as he may determine, which remains, after 
the Senate has acted, in the President, does not survive 
to him in the power of removal after the commission is 
issued. To hold that it does so survive is simply to con- 
tinue in the President the power confessedly in him up 
to the time when he issues the commission, and is as 
necessary for the public good after as before that act. 

"The experience of the country under the operation 
of the tenure-of-office law of 1867, which led to its prac- 
tical repeal by the amendment of 1869, demonstrating, 
as it did, that it is impossible for a body organized as the 
Senate is to participate with the President in the exer- 
cise of the power of removal without fatally obstructing 
the proper exercise of the functions both of the legislative 
and executive departments, and bringing the executive, 
a great co-ordinate department of the Government, into 
contempt and disparagement, while aggrandizing out of 
all proportion the powers of the Senate, which is the far- 
thest removed from the people of all the branches of the 
Government, and the least responsible, converting it into an 
executive directory, and making of it what Mr. Jefferson 
says all * executive directories become, mere sinks of cor- 
ruption and faction,' is a powerful — indeed, unanswer- 
able — argument in favor of that construction of the 
Constitution so consonant with its theory, so logically 
consistent with its terms, and so convenient of execution, 

31 



508 OUR GREAT MEN. 

which vests the power of removal exclusively in the 
President. For it must be admitted that the framers of 
the Constitution did not mean to confer a power upon 
the Senate from the execution of which the evil results 
so graphically depicted by President Grant, Senators 
Morton and Sherman, and Mr. Blaine, the great leaders 
of the Republican party, would ensue legitimately and 
necessarily from it." 

Mr. Coke. then read extracts from one of President 
Grant's messages to Congress, and also from speeches 
of Senators Morton and Sherman, with a short extract 
from Hon. James G. Blaine's Twenty Years in Congress^ 
and, continuing, said: 

"Who, Mr. President, can doubt the dangerous and 
obstructive influence upon the Government and the cor- 
rupting influence upon the Senate to flow from an exer- 
cise of the power sought to be wrested from the Execu- 
tive and appropriated by the Senate by the resolutions 
now before this body? And who, sir, can doubt, after 
reading what these distinguished party leaders have said 
is the result of an efi^ort by the Senate to exercise the 
power claimed, the utter impossibility and impractica- 
bility of its exercise by this body? 

"When to these considerations is added the legislative 
construction of the Constitution given on this subject by 
the First Congress assembled under it in 1789, before 
adverted to, composed in large part of the framers of 
the Constitution, in the enactment of laws for the estab- 
lishment of the Department of Foreign Afl'airs (now of 
State), and of the War Department, and of the Treasury 
Department, in which the power of removal was expressly 



RICHARD COKE. 509 

held, after a debate led by Mr. Madison, regarded as the 
greatest in the history of Congress, to be a constitu- 
tional prerogative of the Executive, and vested solely and 
exclusively in the President, and that this construction — 
advocated with matchless power by Mr. Madison, who 
has been called the Father of the Constitution, and 
approved by George Washington, the Father of his 
Country, who, as President, signed the bills containing 
it — stood unbroken and unchallenged for seventy-eight 
years, approved over and over again in repeated and 
most solemn decisions of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, and by every President from Washington 
to Andrew Jackson, by every Attorney-General of the 
United States, and by every statesman and public man 
of any political party who figured in or out of Con- 
gress during the same period, it would seem that the 
argument has been exhausted, and that the precedent 
established ought to be immovable and beyond the 
reach of innovation. 

"But, Mr. President, nothing is impossible or sacred 
with blind, unreasoning partisanship. In 1835, for the 
first and only time in their great careers. Clay, Calhoun 
and Webster, moved by a common hatred for Andrew 
Jackson, forgot their own differences, and, for the pur- 
pose of curbing his power, made a combined assault 
upon the great precedent established by Washington and 
Madison, and this although each one of them had repeat- 
edly in official and public utterances approved it. The 
precedent remained unmoved and unharmed by their 
attack, mighty as was their combined power, while they 
never recovered from the crushing defeat. In 1867, 



olO OUR GREAT MEN. 

under circumstances on which I will not dwell, because 
they are fresh in the memory of the country, an over- 
w^helming Republican majority in the two Houses of 
Congress confessedly, as the debates on the tenure-of 
office law of 1867 and 1869 abundantly and conclusively 
show, passed the law of 1867 for the sole purpose of 
obstructing Andrew Johnson's administration in dispos- 
ing of the offices of the Government, and of securing to 
the Republican Senate a controlling power over them. 
It was for this purpose, when the country had just 
emerged from a long and bloody civil war, and was in a 
condition bordering closely on revolution, when passion 
and excitement ran high and reason and judgment were 
unsettled, that the law of 1867, overthrowing the con- 
struction of the Constitution which had been established 
and observed for eighty years, was enacted; an act 
regarded as a blunder, and spoken of publicly with ex- 
pressions of regret since by the broadest-minded, ablest 
and most honored leaders of the Republican party — an 
act which the same Republican majority that passed it 
made haste, in 1869, upon the recommendation of Pres- 
ident G-rant, to practically repeal by the law of that date. 
"It is under the act of 1869, thus expounded by the 
ablest men and greatest leaders of the Republican party, 
negativing every point they make, that the Senator from 
Vermont and the majority of the Committee on the 
Judiciary find their authority for the extraordinary 
demand made upon the President, and for the still more 
extraordinary resolutions pending before the Senate. 
The demand upon the Executive Department is made in 
the following resolution : 



RICHARD COKE. 511 

" ^Resolved, That the Attorney-General of the United 
States be, and he hereby is, directed to transmit to the 
Senate copies of all documents and papers that have 
been filed in the Department of Justice since the 1st day 
of January, A. D. 1885, in relation to the management 
and conduct of the office of District Attorney of the 
United States of the Southern District of Alabama.' 

"Why, in executive session, in connection with the 
consideration of the suspension of the District Attorney 
of the Southern District of Alabama, and the appoint- 
ment of his successor, is a demand made for copies of all 
documents and papers filed in the Department of Justice 
since the 1st day of January, 1885, in relation to the 
management and conduct of the office of said District 
Attorney? Under the law as it now stands, null and 
void though it is claimed to be, for unconstitutionality, 
if admitted to be valid and constitutional, it is confessed 
on all hands that the President is free and unfettered, 
and can suspend officers in vacation of the Senate, within 
his discretion, without accountability to anybody. 

"That portion of the act of 1867 which required his 
reasons and evidence for making suspensions reported to 
the Senate was expressly repealed by the act of 1869, and 
since that time there has been no power under this Gov- 
erment authorized to revise or question his conduct or 
motives in making suspensions. The commissions issued 
by the President during the recess of the Senate, both 
under the law of 1869 and Article II of the Constitution, 
which authorizes the President to ' fill up all vacancies that 
may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting 
commissions which shall expire at the end of the next 



512 OUR GREAT MEN. 

session,' are beyond the reach of the Senate, and the action 
of the President in making suspensions is equally so. 
Having no jurisdiction over the subject, and no jDower to 
do anything with it, the demand for the President's rea- 
sons for his action is an impertinent intermeddling by 
the Senate with a matter with which it has nothing to 
do, and has been properly treated by the President as 
such. 

"The right of the Senate to copies of all papers on 
file relating to the fitness of Burnett, who was nominated 
to fill the place of the officer j^roposed to be removed, is 
admitted, because the appointment can only be made by 
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and its 
fitness to be made is a proper subject-matter of inquiry by 
the Senate. All such papers have been promj^tly fur- 
nished in this and all other cases. The answer of Attor- 
ney-General Garland to the Senate resolution, the mate- 
rial portion of which I now read, shows this: 

'"In resj)onse to the said resolution the President of 
the United States directs me to say that the papers which 
were in this Department relating to the fitness of John 
D. Burnett, recently nominated to said office, having been 
already sent to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, 
and the papers and documents which are mentioned in 
said resolution, and still remaining in the custody of this 
Department, having exclusive reference to the suspension 
by the President of George M. Duskin, the late incum- 
bent of the office of District Attorney of the United States 
for the Southern District of Alabama, it is not consid- 
ered that the 2:)ublic interest will be promoted by a com- 
pliance with said resolution and the transmission of the 



RICHARD COKE. 513 

papers and documents therein mentioned to the Senate in 
executive session. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"A. H. Garland, 

^'' Attorney -GeneraV " 

Mr. Coke then read extracts from President Cleve- 
land's message to the Senate, and said: 

"The public press of the country and the speeches 
of Republican Senators on this floor proclaim and avow 
what is matter of common and public notoriety, and 
known to everybody, that the object and purpose of this 
extraordinary proceeding by Republican Senators, while 
admitting that they have no right to demand the Presi- 
dent's reasons for suspending officers, is, by indirection 
and through a mere pretext, to extort these reasons from 
him, hoping to make a little political capital by distort- 
ing them, and to justify themselves in obstructing the 
President in carrying on the Government; and, last and 
greatest of all, to enable them to hold on to the offices 
of the Government, notwithstanding the popular verdict 
which placed a Democratic majority of forty in the House 
of Representatives and a Democratic President in the 
White House at the last election, and through them 
demands a change of men, as well as of measures, wher- 
ever, in the judgment of the President, a change may be 
necessary. 

"The Senator from Vermont commenced his argu- 
ment in support of the pending resolution by saying that 
he rose to speak in behalf of a 'calm and orderly and 
constitutional exercise of the functions of Government.' 
I shall not question the sincerity of the honorable Sena- 



514 j'J OUR GREAT MEN. 

tor, but claim to be myself sincere in believing that this \ 
whole , proceeding is intended to embarrass the adminis- 
tration of the Grovernment and defeat the will of the peo- I 
rpi& as expressed in the last election. 
"'y "It seems that the majority of the Senate is forgetful " ' 
of the fact that the President of the United States is the 
great executive head of the Government, and that as such 
he has powers and prerogatives as clearly defined and as 
fully guarded in the Constitution as are those of the other 
Departments. They seem to forget that the President, 
when he responds to the demand of the Senate, and fur- 
nishes promptly all the 23ublic and official papers asked 
for, and says courteously to the Senate that the other 
papers not furnished are not official papers, but his own 
private papers, some of them confidential communica- 
tions, is backed by fifty-five millions of people, who indorse 
him as truthful, honest, wise, just, patriotic, loyal, and conse- 
quently as one who ought to be believed when he makes 
an official statement under the sanction of his official oath. 
"The President has made that statement in solemn 
form in his message to the Senate ; and coming as it does 
from one great department of the Government to a part 
of another co-ordinate department, it should, by all the 
rules which govern or should govern these departments 
of Government in their intercourse with each other, be 
held to import absolute verity. A due regard for the 
' calm and orderly ' administration of the Government 
should have prompted the honorable Chairman of the Ju- 
diciary Committee to have withdrawn the pending resolu- 
tions upon the incoming of that message. The monstrous 
proposition that the President can have no private or 



RICHARD COKE. 615 

personal or confidential papers, documents or letters, in the 
Departments is asserted in the report of the majority of 
the Judiciary Committee. I interpose, as a conclusive 
answer to this, the solemn statement of the President to 
the Senate that he has such papers and documents in all 
the Departments — his own private papers, handed over 
by him to the several members of his Cabinet for safe 
custody. The President, it does seem, ought to be be- 
lieved when he says that these papers are of no interest 
to the public. 

" Andrew Jackson more than once maintained the pre- 
rogatives of the Presidential office by refusing to comply 
with demands of the same character, and John Tyler and 
President Grant, and even Mr. Hayes, all in notable 
instances, the records of all of which have been read in 
this debate by the Senator from West Virginia, have 
done just what Mr. Cleveland has done so well in this 
case. Mr. Cleveland has illustrious company and an 
unbroken line of precedent to support him. The Chair- 
man of the Judiciary Committee, with all his ability and 
research, and although challenged by the Senator from 
Alabama to produce an instance in which a demand like 
this upon President Cleveland has been acceded to by a 
President of the United States, has failed to find one. He 
has not shown a single one. All such demands have, 
from the beginning of this Government, the time of Wash- 
ington, been repelled as invasions of the executive domain, 
without a single exception. Whenever the question has 
been made it has been decided as Mr. Cleveland has 
determined it. 

" Mr. President, since I have been a member of this 



516 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Senate, and it was during the administration of ^h\ 
Hayes, the Senate was for two years under Democratic 
control. We could have hatched up plausible but dishonest 
pretexts for rejecting every nomination sent to the Senate 
by the Republican President. We could have embarrassed 
the administration of the Grovernment by factious oppo- 
sition, while protesting to the country that we favored a 
'calm and orderly' administration of the Government; 
but the Democratic majority pursued no such methods. 
They aided the Republican President by a prompt con- 
firmation of his nominations, all Republican, and I remem- 
ber no instance of a contest over a nomination involving 
any heat or feeling that did not originate between Repub- 
licans. Let the country make the contrast now that the 
positions of parties are reversed. A Republican Senate 
absolutely refuses to act upon the nominations of the 
President, except upon conditions which require him to 
depart from all precedents of his office, to sacrifice his 
convictions of constitutional duty and his own self- 
respect." 




Hon. WILLIAM M. EVARTS, 



OF NEW YORK. 




ILLIAM M. EYARTS, of IS'ew York City, 
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Febru- 
ary 6th, 1818. He received a classical 
education ; graduated at Yale College in 
1837, and then attended the Harvard Law School. He 
was admitted to the Bar in New York in 1841, and has 
practiced law there ever since. In the National Repub- 
lican Convention of 1860 he was Chairman of the Xew 
York delegation. 

Union College gave him the degree of LL.D. in 
1857, Yale College in I860, and Harvard University 
in 1870. 

He was counsel for President Johnson in his impeach- 
ment trial in 1868. At the conclusion of the impeach- 
ment trial President Johnson appointed him a member 
of his Cabinet, Attorney-General of the United States. 
He served until the close of Johnson's term. 

In 1872 he was counsel for the United States before 
the tribunal of arbitration on the Alabama claims at 
Geneva, Switzerland. During the winter of 1876 and 
1877 he was counsel for President Hayes in behalf of the 
Republican party before the Electoral Commission. He 

(517) 



518 OUR GREAT MEN. 

was Secretary of State in Hayes' Cabinet. March 4tli, 
1885, he took his seat in the United States Senate ; and, 
though but a comparatively new member of the Senate, 
he has had a long career of public life. He is one of 
the most brilliant lawyers in the United States. As an 
orator he is rarely excelled. 

The following is a speech made by Mr. Evarts on the 
bill to provide for the performance of the duties of the 
office of President in case of the removal, death, resigna- 
tion or inability both of the President and Vice-Pres- 
ident. Mr, Evarts said: 

"Mr. President, I should not venture to take any 
part in this debate at this stage of its consideration by 
the Senate, when the subject has been so fully debated at 
previous sessions in the years 1881 and 1882, if my inter- 
est in, and my investigations into, the subject had com- 
menced with my acquaintance with the action and pro- 
ceedings of the Senate. But having had occasion, pro- 
fessionally, heretofore to give a very thorough examina- 
tion into the constitutional provisions and to the natural 
and necessary workings of the provisions, one way and 
the other, that should be adopted by Congress to meet 
the exigency which is now presented for its action, I 
have thought that it was on my part at least reasonable 
that I should j^resent the views thus formed. It is quite 
true that they concur in result, and the means by which 
the results of reasoning on the subject are reached, with 
those that have been presented on one side and the other 
of this Chamber which apparently are to receive the 
assent of the majority of this body ; and that, if it were 
the only consideration that should guide me, would lead 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 519 

me to interpose no interruption, even of a half hour's 
consideration, of the action upon the bill. 

"The amendment before the Senate relates exclu- 
sively, as I understand it, to that portion of the present 
bill which provides for the continuance in the discharge 
of the duties of the Presidency of the officers designated 
under this law in its preceding part who are to assume 
and execute those duties ; and I should confine myself 
entirely to the latter branch of the subject were it not 
for the general considerations that in my mind have 
made it a necessary conclusion to me upon the text of 
the Constitution itself that the succession provided by 
this measure is not only entirely constitutional, which is 
admitted, I believe, on all sides, but it is the only possi- 
ble constitutional exercise of the very limited power that 
is accorded by the Constitution to Congress. 

"There are two general propositions, I think, which 
all students of the Constitution will admit without ques- 
tion. One is, that in the frame of the office of President 
and its origin of authority from the direct action of the 
people, in a channel marked out by the Constitution, the 
purpose plainly expressed and written all over the action 
of the Constitution in this very matter was that Congress 
shall not participate, either substantially or circumstan- 
tially, in the election of the President of the United 
States. I then think it will be found generally impressed 
upon the Constitution, I would say imbedded in the Con- 
stitution, that periodicity, and accommodated and adjusted 
periodicity, in all the action of the great departments of 
the Grovernment except the judicial, is not to be treated 
as circumstantial or only of convenience and propriety, 



520 OUR GREAT MEN. 

but that it enters into the very scheme by which the 
election of President by the people without the aid and 
without the control and without the regulation by Con- 
gress possible was provided, and it carries with it that 
the President is to come upon the scheme of the election 
and this arrangement of periodicity with a concurrent 
and attendant action of the people on the other branches 
of election. I believe it is essential in the contemplation 
of the framers of the Constitution, I believe it is embraced 
in the firm provisions of the Constitution, that a newly- 
elected President, as he is fixed upon a periodicity of four 
years, is to come into power and assume the reins of gov- 
ernment with a concurrence of periodicity in the election 
of the lower House of Congress. 

"I believe, therefore, that the inference from the 
mere nomination of the period of duration is not the 
essential idea for the Presidency or for the lower House 
of Congress. It is that when this whole frame of gov- 
ernment was launched into action and became the oper- 
ative government of the people of the United States, it 
was understood by the framers, and is written in the 
provisions of the Constitution, that after the initial date 
of this periodicity was fixed it was predetermined that 
it was not to be disturbed, and that this synchronism of 
the action of the electors of President and the voters for 
the House of Representatives was not to be disturbed. 

" But it is said that while all that is so in purpose 
and intent, and while the gravity and importance of that 
adjustment can not be disparaged, and has not been dis- 
paraged, yet there is no connection impressed in the 
Constitution in terms upon the actual calendar as estab- 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 521 

lished by our working system. It is true that the Con- 
stitution of the United States as originally framed, and 
under which the Government was set in motion, does not 
refer to the 4th of March, or any stated period, as the 
initial step in the periodical rotation ; but ever since the 
adoption of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution 
the 4th of March appears as one of the dates fixed in 
the Constitution that can not be changed in the matter 
to which that relates, however much you may certify the 
period of election otherwise. The Twelfth Amendment 
provides that the time and opportunity of the House of 
Representatives to intervene in the juncture prescribed 
for the election of a President is limited and determined 
by the succeeding 4th of March. The alternative pre- 
sented by a failure of the electoral colleges to present a 
President is devolved then, as we all know, upon a par- 
ticular frame and adoption of the action of that body 
upon the House of Representatives ; and if that function 
is not observed and executed within a certain limit of 
time in electing a President of the United States, then 
an alternative arises for the action of the Senate, which 
then, but not before that period, can elect a Vice-Presi- 
dent, and thus provide a successor for the term that is 
thus left vacant. 

'"And if the House of Representatives shall not 
choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall 
devolve upon them, before the 4th day of March next 
following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, 
as in the case of the death or other constitutional disa- 
bility of the President.' 

"Under this periodicity that we have spoken of, this 



522 OUR GREAT MEN. 

firm line of demarkation between the liberty and power 
secured to the House of Representatives and the line upon 
which the Senate shall succeed with its authority, the 4th 
of March is fixed; and if the calendar be disturbed by 
this new election of President, then there may be an 
interval when the House will have a much longer period 
than was contemplated by the arrangement of this Gov- 
ernment as fixed in the Constitution for exercising its 
option of choosing or not choosing a President, and the 
Senate will be left expectant in an intermediate form for 
a very considerable time, for the Senate can not proceed 
to furnish a Vice-President who can take the place until 
the period within which the action of the House of Rep- 
resentatives is possible shall have expired. 

"It is true that an inconvenience of this nature in 
the actual provisions of the law of 1792 regulating the 
period for election has not actually arisen in practice; 
but the argument is that the Constitution meant to fix 
it, and did not leave it to Congress to determine whether 
there should be an accommodation to this circumstantial 
consideration; nay, it did not leave it to Congress to 
determine in the face of an exigency that they would 
provide, pro re nata, for the occasion, whether there 
should be an election or not. That would be by Con- 
gress an open breach in the main fortress of the Presi- 
dency, that the people should maintain it entirely out of 
the intervention of Congress. That is broken down by 
the proposition that the Constitution left it open to Con- 
gress to determine whether or not an election should be ' 
held; and, if so, when and under what circumstances of 
date^ under what circumstances of haste or of protraction, 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 523 

this election should be ordered. In other words, whatever 
general and wise law might be adopted that should ame- 
liorate the interruption of succession in the disturbance 
of the working of the Government as little as possible 
was fastened in the hands of Congress, and was open to 
repeal or modification, and repeal or modification in close 
proximity to and in the near actual contemplation of the 
political situation of the country as between parties that 
should incline it to have an election or not have an 
election, as an election would be favorable or not favor- 
able to one or the other party of the country. I need 
not say that in these suggestions concerning political 
methods, and political action of political men and polit- 
ical bodies, I am not casting an aspersion upon either 
men or the constitution of the bodies. The bodies are 
political, the men are political, and the Constitution 
recognized both these facts, and determined that the 
lines of the Presidency should be drawn free from, not 
open to, any circumstantial invasion of the method for 
the establishment of the Presidency. 

"Now, with these propositions, which, I think, must 
be recognized, let us see by recurring to the few clauses 
in the Constitution which have the least reference either 
to the original election of President or to the provision 
for the catastrophe by which the source of authority and 
the proceedings of election have been frustrated by the 
intervention of death or disaster or removal of the Pres- 
ident or the Yice-President acting as President and being 
President — let us see whether there is anything in the 
actual provisions that interferes with or reduces in the 
least the proposition that Congress is not intended by 

32 



524 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the Constitution to meddle at all in tlie Presidential elec- 
tion. It will be found that so far from carrying such an 
impression as that the power was meant to be given, 
they show that it was carefully guarded against ex indus- 
tria. So it is on every proper construction, legal and 
constitutional, of the narrowest and the best defined 
power accorded to Congress, when any exigency was sup- 
posed by irregular and undesired and unexpected derange- 
ments, Congress should need to be appealed to. 

"In the first place, in regard to the election itself, as 
we all know, the President came independent of Congress, 
and as there might be some pretension and some neces- 
sity that circumstantial authority might be claimed by 
Congress, and the claim might be enlarged by constitu- 
tional construction, the language is firm that : 

'"The Congress may determine the time of choosing 
the electors, and the day on which they shall give their 
votes, which day shall be the same throughout all the 
United States.' 

"In other words, the Constitution determines that the 
votes shall be cast on the same day. That the Constitu- 
tion protects ; and what does it say about it? Merely that 
the time of choosing electors and the day of electors' vot- 
ing may be regulated by Congress. There is the sole 
intervention possible to Congress in the election, and that 
firmly excludes every argument in favor of circumstantial 
arrangement or modification. 

"There is but one other clause as to any 2:)ower of 
Congress respecting the subject of the Presidency in its 
Constitution, and that is for the concurrent misfortune 
that shall attend the constitutionally-elected President 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 525 

and Vice-President. Now, notice here the equal appor- 
tionment and reservation in the Constitution, by which it 
was fixed in advance what could be accorded and what 
should not be in the power of Congress, even in the special 
contingency suggested. If, instead of doubting whether 
this or that conclusion may be inferred in clauses of the 
Constitution by its expression or by its limit of expression, 
constitutional lawyers and those charged with legislative 
action in obedience to the Constitution would submissively 
and carefully weigh what the wise, sagacious, circumspect, 
patriotic framers of the Constitution had in their minds 
and in their language had definitely expressed, thereby 
we should have much less of loose discussion about 
whether this or that might be found in the Constitution 
or in the acts of Congress. This body was filled with the 
purpose that Congress should not meddle with the original 
constitution of the Presidency. They had thrown every 
guard about that. They had precluded on all sides by 
insurmountable barriers that this protection of the Presi- 
dential source of authority should not be interrupted by 
Congress. They saw that their contrivance against the 
contingencies of life and health and of political disturbance 
leading to the action of Congress by imjieachment and 
conviction might not always be eifectual; and, with all 
that in their minds, they undertook to leave Congress to 
provide for this one emergency. They shaped it in every 
way they could shape it. leaving open only what they 
could not provide for — that is, an elective successor to 
fill a vacancy in a term. 

''In the case of disability that should afi"ect both of 
the officers elected, Congress may do what ? It might be 



526 OUR GREAT MEN. 

said that they might elect. It might be said that 
they might provide for an election. It might be said 
that the first officer of State should be authorized by 
Congress to assume the power. What did the Con- 
stitution say ? ' Congress may by law provide ' — provide 
what? Provide 'declaring what officer shall then act as 
President,' and these words that I have read are the be- 
all and the end-all of what the Constitution has intrusted 
to Congress. 'By law' it may 'provide.' It can not 
wait to provide as a mere emergency for the occasion, 
treating it as they may desire, but ' by law ' it must be 
provided for, in which law the President of the United 
States must concur. It limits it by exclusive words in 
our language and in our law. There is the distinction 
between announcing and enacting, between the power of 
selection and the power of declaring; and that was, to 
carry out the purpose of the framers of the Constitution, 
that Congress should have by settled law (changeable, of 
course), which had received the concurrence of the Presi- 
dent of the United States, power to declare 'what officer 
shall then act as President,' and then on that designation 
Congress exhausted the power ; and the Constitution itself 
what the consequences shall be of that declaration, which is 
all that is open to Congress. 

"Now the Constitution resumes its authority: 'And 
such officer shall act accordingly ' — that is, discharge the 
duties of President — 'until the disability be removed,' 
which is one of the occasions for the action of Congress, 
and the other occasion, the alternative occasion, when the 
office is vacant, ' or ' in that case ' a President shall be 
elected.' And when the Constitution stops there, and 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 527 

does not provide for Congress the right to determine 
whether there shall be an election or when there shall be 
an election, and the power of the Constitution asserts 
itself as disposing of the whole question, when Congress 
has made its declaration of the officer, and the Constitu- 
tion has prescribed what shall ensue, it is then fastened 
upon the power of the officer; that is, if he takes the 
place to perform the duties by reason of disability, the 
Constitution says he shall hold it for the disability. Does 
any one pretend that Congress could order an election 
during a temporary disability, during a constitutional dis- 
ability, whatever that may be ? By no means. Here, 
then, is an exhausted power. It comes then to the alter- 
native, the vacancy, however it may have occurred. 
There it provides that the duties of the Presidency shall 
be executed until the election of a President; and what 
does that mean? It means an election that the Constitu- 
tion provides for ; it means what the framers of the Con- 
stitution knew and recognized as a condition that was to 
follow. That is, the whole frame of the periodicity of the 
Constitution, and that frame which protects the office 
against innovation from Congress, is maintained in all 
respects and always. And you will find that all the mis- 
chiefs which have threatened and all the difficulties which 
have given rise to debate among eminent statesmen and em- 
inent lawyers as to there being any doubts, and therefore dif- 
ficulty, come from not reading the Constitution as meaning 
what the framers meant — meant by them intelligently — 
and what they were undertaking to provide for, what, at 
least, they meant to maintain, that whatever, in the un- 
foreseen vicissitudes that should attend the life of a great 



528 OUR GREAT MEN. 

nation, might occur, they meant this principle at least 
should last, that Congress should not say whether or not 
there should be an election, or when there should be one, 
but should do what ? Exactly what the framers of the 
Constitution did not undertake to do, and did not feel 
themselves competent to do. 

"They had made a reasonable provision for the vicis- 
situdes of life; they had made reasonable provision for 
the emergencies of political excitement by impeachment 
and removal. Unless there was a designated succession 
by persons that were to proceed from the electoral col- 
lege, unless there was to be, so to speak, a provision of 
a large number of Vice-Presidents who would take the 
place in the failure of succession (which was not reason- 
able and was not suitable), they had no choice but to 
leave in that emergency the situation to be provided for 
by Congress in the second, the third, the fourth or the 
fifth vacancy that might take place. But the moment 
you have acted in that direction then the certainty is 
fenced in the frame of the Constitution, and the officer 
designated is intrusted with the execution of the powers 
that would have devolved on the constitutionally-elected 
Vice-President if he had succeeded to the Presidency. 

" So, then, in my humble judgment, fortified by the 
views expressed by colleagues on this side and on the 
other side of the Chamber, fortified by commentary, forti- 
fied by the action and the argument of eminent suc- 
cessors to the framers in all the divisions of political 
parties on this question, I find at least that we simply 
wander into difficulties that our fathers had left open to 
us, as they thought, when by understanding the purpose 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 529 

of the Constitution we should have seen that no expatia- 
tion and no argument to meet these difficulties was 
imposed upon the wisdom or the discretion of Congress. 
"In case the Vice-President fails, under the vicissi- 
tudes named, to take his place, then the Constitution 
says what the consequence is to be. Here there are to 
be considered two subjects ; first, whether it is desirable 
that the succession should be placed where since 1792 it 
has been lodged, but where it has never been exercised, 
in the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the 
House. I will not repeat any of the views of expe- 
diency, both of the higher and of the lesser weight, in 
this matter when the vacation of office is created by a 
power higher than human will ; but I must submit that 
when one of the alternatives of vacating the office 
depends upon the will of Congress in its two branches, 
then to say that the framers of this Constitution, who 
meant to keep hands off by Congress from the election 
and determination of the Presidency, in that event 
actually opened it to them to substitute a successor, one 
that was to emerge from their own body by their own 
election, and was to take and fill the vacancy that had 
been created by the will of the two Houses of Congress — 
what say you of the wisdom of providing for one of 
these officers to succeed in the Presidency when the 
place was to be made for him by the impeachment of 
the House and the sentence of the Senate? Is that 
according to the circumspection and the precaution of 
the framers of the Constitution? I apprehend that I 
can satisfy you, as I have myself, that on the plan of the 
Constitution they left it not possible to either of the two 



530 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Houses of Congress to allow the successor in the Presi- 
dential office named by Congress to take the place where 
Congress itself had been the accuser and judge to 
vacate it. 

"Now, was it not a very precise way used by the 
framers of the Constitution when they said that all Con- 
gress could do was to declare what officer should fill the 
place? Did they not mean an officer of the United 
States ? They certainly could not name an officer of a 
State, much less an officer of a foreign state. An officer 
of the United States unquestionably w^as meant; and 
then, having in their minds that Congress should not 
meddle with the constitution of the Presidency, they saw 
when they limited it to an officer of the United States 
that they excluded a Senator and a Representative, 
because in the same Constitution, using the same phrase, 
not pointed to any particular circumstance of this kind, 
there was this provision touching the question who could 
by possibility, and who could not by possibility, be an 
officer of the United States : 

'"And no i^erson holding any office under the United 
States shall be a member of either House during his 
continuance in office.' 

"You have not only shut out the two Houses from 
meddling with the Presidency, but you have shut out 
the members of the two Houses from any possible suc- 
cession, because they can not ever be officers of the 
United States. Can it be supposed that the framers of 
this Constitution, so circumspect and so sagacious, left 
this loop-hole for the Presidency that you could vacate 
it yourselves and fill it yourselves ? 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 531 

"I need not refer to the other clauses of the Consti- 
tution that have been insisted upon, and usefully and 
wisely, in the argument. I think when I read this Con- 
stitution in these clauses I have a right to feel that the 
great men who framed it knew how to write it as well 
as I know how to read it. 

"Now, look at the difficulties. Let me suggest one: 
that the President's office being vacated, and the Vice- 
Presidencv beiuf? vacant, then the President of the Sen- 
ate or the Speaker of the House, as the present arrange- 
ment is, becomes the person to discharge the duties. It 
is an annexation to this old and important position, no 
doubt, of President of the Senate or Speaker of the 
House, as the case may be; but if either of them stays 
here the Constitution has said he shall have no office, 
and can not be chosen an officer. Then, is the discharge 
[of the duties of President a new office? That seems to 
be settled in the general judgment. What, then, does 
;the present arrangement do with the decision, and I 
■think the sound constitutional decision, that a Senator 
[or a member of the House of Representatives is not 
pvithin the impeachment clause of the Constitution? 

"The President is named; the Vice-President is 

named. Both of them are officers; and, ex industria, and 

:to guard against the notion that their dignity is such 

that they should not be included in the list of impeacha- 

:ble officers, they are specially named. The only persons 

'who are open to impeachment under the Constitution 

are the President, the Vice-President and all civil officers. 

Military officers are not under it. No one who does not 

come within the designation of a civil officer is impeach- 



532 OUR GREAT MEN. 

able. The Senate having decided in Blount's case, in 
1798, that he was not open to impeachment, what is your 
constitutional position when you have got a Senator who 
is discharging as an annex to his office the duties of Pres- 
ident? Is he open to impeachment? If so, how do you 
expose him to impeachment? He is not named as Pres- 
ident; he is not named as Vice-President; but the duties 
are annexed to the place he fills in the Senate as a mem- 
ber, or in the House as a member. He is not open to 
impeachment in that capacity. Thus, by this, which I 
must regard as a sedulous scheme departing from the 
precise line of the Constitution, you are actually involved 
in the condition of making a man not subject by the 
Constitution to impeachment execute all the offices and 
duties and powers of the President. 

"I have said all that I need to say on the subject of 
the line of succession. To my mind no one can support, 
under this Constitution and the construction of it, the 
deposit of this power in an officer only of the Senate, and 
not of the United States; an officer only of the House 
of Representatives, and not an officer of the United States, 
within the meaning of the Constitution. 

" Now, in regard to what happens in case of a desig- 
nation by Congress, by law, declaring the successor, then 
as to the question whether Congress can proceed any 
further and say he shall discharge it only so long — he 
shall discharge it only till this or that event or circum- 
stance; he shall discharge it until an election that the 
Constitution has named or defined — let us look at that a 
moment. Let us see whether this is a technical con- 
struction of the language of the clause that I refer to. 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 533 

There are two conditions in regard to the situation of the 
Presidency where Congress may be called upon and has 
been empowered by the Constitution to act. 

" I need not enumerate or further repeat the three 
conditions under which the office may be vacant — removal, 
resignation, death. That is a vacancy in the Presidency ; 
that is one situation, and the circumstances under which 
it arises need no further attention from me. But there 
remains another condition for the Presidency in which 
the office shall be full, constitutionally full, not to be 
touched at all. There is a President of the United States, 
but by the infirmities that attend all, great and small, an 
interruption of health, mental or physical incapacity occurs, 
creating a situation incompatible with the exercise of the 
duty the Constitution has reposed in him. Then, is the 
naming of a successor exposed to any judgment or any 
rapacity to be exercised by the two Houses ? No. They 
can only name the officer to fulfill the duties during that 
disability (which is the antithesis of ability), to provide 
for that case, which is an ordinary condition, not of depo- 
sition, not of possible impeachment, not of possible con- 
demnation in the height of party excitement, but a 
disability from providential interference, recognized and 
submitted to; but Providence has not vacated the Presi- 
dency, and there must then be a substituted execution of 
the duties just as long as that disability shall last, never 
possibly to be interrupted by an election. 

"Why, then, should we be so eager to understand 
that when there was a vacancy the framers of the Con- 
stitution were not satisfied to have the Congress name a 
man who was fit, an officer, to take what was left of the 



534 OUR GREAT MEN. 

term of the Presidency to be filled out ? I do not under- 
stand why it can be supposed that the framers of the Con- 
stitution, having two alternatives laid before them, and 
undertaking to provide by a disjunctive for the one and 
for the other, and neither of them has anything to do 
with Congress, Providence having struck its blow upon 
the President, he still filling the office, allowed Congress 
to take charge of the vacancy by death or removal, and 
make it possible to derange the synchronism of our whole 
scheme of government. 

"Nay, more than that, sacred duty requires that it 
should not be construed to have been left at the option 
of Congress to say whether the office was vacant or not. 
They did not leave it for Congress declaring the officer, 
so that where they were satisfied with him they would 
repeal the law, and not order a re-election or otherwise 
resort to an old law for an election and a successor; or, 
you please, that the two Houses of Congress, or the people 
of the United States, if they should find out what did 
please them, could then order a re-election, No; let us 
understand that this business of filling, at the will of Con- 
gress, the Presidency, or omitting to fill it for this or that 
length of time, is not circumstantial, but is at the very 
bottom of the propositions of the Constitution. 

"Mr. President, I think I have, however little they 
may be entitled to consideration, presented my views to 
the members of the Senate. For myself, I find here a stat- 
ute to put on the book, if this bill is enacted, that in both 
respects of succession and term of office the successor is 
conformed to the absolute language of the Constitution 
and the necessary purpose and scheme of its provisions." 



:H^&p 



Hon. JOHN H. MITCHELL, 

OF OREGON. 




lOHN H. MITCHELL, of Portland, is a 
native of Washington County, Pennsyl- 
vania, where he was born June 22cl, 1835. 
He was educated in the public schools and 
received instructions from a private tutor. He was 
admitted to the Bar, and has made law his profession. 
He removed to California, and located first in San Luis 
Obispo, where he practiced law for a time; then he 
removed to San Francisco, where he resumed his legal 
pursuits. In 1860 he removed to Portland, Oregon, and 
there continued his profession. 

In 1861 he was elected Corporation Attorney of Port- 
land, and served for one year, when he was elected to 
the State Senate, and served four years, the last two as 
President of the Senate. 

In 1865 the Governor of Oregon gave him the com- 
mission of Lieutenant-Colonel in the State militia. In 
1866 he was a candidate for United States Senator, but 
was defeated in the caucus by one vote. 

He was Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in Will- 
iamette University, in Salem, Oregon, from 1867 to 1871. 
He was elected to the United States Senate and served 

(535) 



536 OUR GREAT MEN. 

from 1873 to 1879. He was again elected to the United 
States Senate as a Republican, taking his seat in Decem- 
ber, 1885. 

The following is an extract from a speech by Mr. 
Mitchell on the Chinese question: 

"Whatever may be the sentiment on this subject east 
of the Rocky Mountains, where the shadows of this great 
scourge have as yet comparatively so lightly fallen, there 
is among the people west of the Rocky Mountains but 
one sentiment, but one mind, but one judgment, on this 
great and all-absorbing question, if we may except an 
occasional mercenary journal whose venal proprietors 
attach more value to the patronage of the Chinese six 
companies than they do to the rights of the masses of the 
people or the best interests of the State, or an occasional 
corporation whose interest is to degrade labor, cheapen 
the price of honest toil, and obtain the services of the 
laboring man at the lowest possible price. 

"As bearing upon this question of unanimity of 
opinion on the Pacific coast in opposition to Chinese 
immigration, it may be well to remember that six years 
ago, through the action of the Legislature of the State of 
California, the question was submitted to a vote of the 
people of the State. The whole vote cast was 155,521 — 
a full vote. Of these, 154,638 were cast in opposition to 
Chinese immigration, while only 883 votes were cast in 
favor of it. And it is an unquestionable fact that public 
opinion on this question in the infected districts has ever 
since been becoming more solidified, more robust, more 
aggressive, and is now more determined and more 
emphatic, than ever before." 





..tH' 



^MUIlilL J, M^M^^ILIL. 



Hon. SAMUEL J. RANDALL, 

OF PENNSYLVANIA. 




[aMUEL J. RANDALL, of Philadelphia, 
was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the 
10th day of October, 1828. He is the son 
of Josiah Randall, an eminent lawyer of 
that city. His mother was Ann Worrall, daughter of 
General Joseph Worrall, of the days of Jefferson. He 
received an academic education, and then engaged in mer- 
cantile life. 

For four years he was a member of the City Councils 
of Philadelphia, and was for one term a member of the 
State Senate of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Randall served during the late war as a member 
of the "First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry," a vol- 
unteer military company organized in 1774. After the 
fall of Fort Sumter the troop offered its services, and 
was mustered into the service of the United States in 
May, 1861, for ninety days. The troop was with General 
Robert Patterson, in the valley of the Shenandoah, in 1861. 
It was in the advance at the battle of Falling Waters, 
where, as General Patterson says, for the first and only 
time, that gallant soldier, "Stonewall" Jackson, was de- 
feated and driven back. Mr. Randall at this time acted 

(539) 



540 OUR GREAT MEN. 

as Quartermaster to the company ; he was afterward pro- 
moted to the rank of Cornet, which corresponds to that of 
Captain in the regular army. 

In June, 1863, when there was an intimation of an 
advance of Confederate troops north of the Potomac, this 
troop again tendered its services to the country, and was 
accepted without taking the oath. They rendered some 
important services during that trying time, and received 
the thanks of the Grovernor of Pennsylvania and of the 
"War Department. 

Mr. Randall has been a member of the House of 
Representatives since 1863, when he took his seat at the 
convening of the Thirty-eighth Congress. He was elected 
Speaker in 1876 ; he was re-elected Speaker in 1877, and 
again in 1879. He represents the protective element of 
the Democratic party. During the Forty-seventh Con- 
gress there was a Republican majority. Since Mr. Car- 
lisle has been Speaker, Mr. Randall has been Chairman 
of the Committee on Appropriations. 

In one of his great speeches, Mr. Randall, speaking 
on the tariff commission, said: 

"In the matter of taxation we are acting under a 
written Constitution. ' Congress shall have power to lay 
and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the 
debts and provide for the common defense and welfare 
of the United States.' I need not enlarge upon our tra- 
ditional history in this regard, and it will be accepted as 
true that only at periods of great necessity and urgency 
have excise or internal taxes been resorted to. Our j^res- 
ent internal revenue system grew up out of the necessities 
of the war, and when these necessities cease that taxation 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 541 

should disappear. When the framers of the Constitution 
granted the power to impose excise duties it was a point 
of serious dispute, and was agreed to finally only as a 
resort in case the Government should be involved in war, 
and not to be used as a permanent mode of raising 
revenue. 

" I will not enlarge upon this ; I believe it to be incon- 
trovertible, however men may change sides because of 
other considerations aifecting other questions; and I do 
not forget that Thomas Jeiferson, the author of the Dec- 
laration of Independence and the founder of the Demo- 
cratic party, brought about the rej)eal of internal or excise 
taxes as one of the very first acts of his administration as 
President of the United States. 

"I favor, therefore, as speedily as possible, a total 
abolition of our internal revenue system, and I am ready 
to join hands with any and all in this House in favor of 
an equalization of our duties on imports. 'No one who 
understands the existing tariff laws will deny the justice 
and necessity of revision. The present duties were, for 
the most part, levied during w^ar, and for the purpose of 
raising a large war revenue. It will suffice, in this con- 
nection, to quote the Industrial League as unanswerable 
in this regard, as it is an admission on the part of those 
who favor the highest protective duties : 

"'They consider such revision desirable for the inter- 
ests both of the industries affected and those of consumers, 
partly on account of some original imperfections in the 
present tariff and partly on account of the modifications 
which are demanded by the changes which have occurred 
in conditions of production and commerce.' 

33 



542 GUR GBEAT MEN. 

" There should be, however, no vicious assault on these 
laws. Changes should have a firm foundation in reason, 
and especially should we avoid mere experimental and 
purely speculative efforts on this vital subject. Our excess 
of revenue now approaches in amount the annual receipts 
from internal or excise taxes. If proper economy be exer- 
cised in expenditures, they can be made to be within the 
limits of our ordinary sources of taxation, enabling us, with- 
out jar or friction, to repeal internal tax laws, which are 
inquisitorial and offensive in the highest degree. These 
taxes reach vexatiously every citizen in his business, in 
his household, and in the affairs of every-day life, until they 
became unendurable. There is no longer an excuse, in 
my opinion, for their continuance. 

" The objection to direct taxes is equally strong to 
internal taxes, and either or both are justified only by 
stern necessity. They are irritating and dangerous, and 
internal revenue taxes entail ujoon us the keeping up, as 
at present, somewhere near five thousand officers engaged 
in their collection, distributed in every county of every 
State, tainting, as we know, the source of all power in 
this Republic — the elections of the people. Who favors 
direct tax ? No one ; and if the internal taxes were not 
imposed by law, is there a man who would risk his polit- 
ical future by asking that the system should be put into 
operation ? I sincerely believe there is not a man. 

" I did hope, when this Congress assembled, that before 
the adjournment of this session a very large reduction of 
internal revenue would have resulted from our labors. 
The Committee on Ways and Means seemed to favor a 
reduction of 170,000,000, but the fiat of a Republican 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 543 

Congressional caucus overruled that good intent. Thus 
the majority of the Representatives in this House of one 
political party, and of a party representing a doubtful 
majority of the people, even at the time of its election, 
regulates the current of remedial legislation, and in this 
instance on a subject which should be non-j^artisan. Thus 
the opportunity of relieving our tax-annoyed and tax-bur- 
dened constituents may be lost. 

" The reduction as now recommended by the Commit- 
tee on Ways and Means reaches in great part those most 
able to pay, leaving the great body of consumers without 
relief. How long the latter will permit this state of 
things to continue will probably be determined at our 
next Congressional elections. With the repeal of internal 
or excise taxes will come a resort exclusively to duties on 
imports as the main supply of our resources, and I main- 
tain, if our expenditures be kejDt within just and reasona- 
ble bounds, we can from this source derive adequate reve- 
nue for the administration of the Government in all its 
constitutional and legitimate functions. 

" The estimates for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 
1883, of the amount to be raised from duties on imports 
is 1217,000,000, and from all other sources, leaving out 
internal taxes, |30, 000,000 ; so that the total abolition of 
excise taxes would still leave to the Government in the 
neighborhood of |250,000,000. 

" It must be recollected, however, that while our cur- 
rent annual payment of interest on the public debt has 
been reduced to |61,000,000 (which will continue to 
decrease), yet there will be a greater increase in liabilities 
on account of pensions. Taking the years ending June 



544 OUK GREAT MEN. 

30th, 1877 and 1878, as a criterion, this amount of receipts 
would still, with prudence and frugality, leave a sufficient 
revenue. Let me recapitulate : The net ordinary expendi- 
tures for the year ending June 30th, 1877, $144,209,- 
963.28 ; the net ordinary expenditures for the year ending 
June 30th, 1878, |134,463,452.15. In the latter year no 
appropriations were made for rivers and harbors. The 
amount of appropriations for these objects for the former 
year was about $5,000,000, so that a fair average of the 
net ordinary expenses based on these two years would be 
$142,000,000. Let us to this amount add on account of 
interest $61,000,000, and for sinking fund about $45,000,- 
000, per annum, a sum which I deem sufficient in amount 
each year toward liquidation of the aggregate amount of 
the debt, and we have a gross sum of expenditure of 
$248,000,000. 

"There will equitably stand to the credit of the sink- 
ing fund for the year ending June 30th, 1883, taking the 
bonds already called for payment up to July 1, 1882, 
$40,423,700. The sinking fund for the current fiscal 
year and arrearages for prior years were fully j^rovided 
for by calls which matured March 13th last (1882) and 
prior to that date. The bonds in calls maturing from 
that date to June 30th next are not applied to the sink- 
ing fund, because it is full. While the bonds included 
in calls maturing from March 13th to June 30th, being 
calls 108 to 112 and part of the one hundred and sev- 
enth, amounting to $40,423,700, are not applied to the 
sinking fund, yet as arrearages have been in the years 
past continued to be counted on book accounts, there is 
no reason why the payment of our bonds in excess of 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 545 

the legal requirement of the sinking fund should not 
equitably be credited, thus protecting us against a defi- 
ciency in the event that the internal taxes are largely 
reduced or altogether abolished. 

"In my opinion, $75,000,000 of payment on account of 
current pensions and arrears is as much each year as 
can be safely made with due protection against frauds. 
TJntil the arrears are all paid— say $45,000,000 per year 
in addition to appropriations of years 1877-78 — we might 
be required to continue the tax on whisky, say at fifty 
cents per gallon, or we could encroach upon and reduce 
our now excessive unemployed balance in the Treasury. 
Admitting there might be a moderate deficiency, we 
have — to meet such deficiency — now in the Treasury 
1136,000,000 above and beyond every claim on the Gov- 
ernment, dollar for dollar. 

"It is thus made plain that, with economical expendi- 
tures and reduced appropriations for the year, we are fully 
provided. 

"As I have already said, a heavy reduction or the 
abolition of internal taxes would compel immediate revis- 
ion of our tariff laws. How that can be done with most 
expedition is the question which most directly concerns us. 

" I do not favor a tariff enacted upon the ground of 
protection simply for the sake of protection, because I 
doubt the existence of any constitutional warrant for any 
such construction or the grant of any such power. It 
would manifestly be in the nature of class legislation, and 
to such legislation, favoring one class at the expense of any 
other, I have always been opposed. 

" In my judgment this question of free trade will not 



546 OUR GREAT MEX. 

arise practically in this country during our lives, if ever, 
so long as we continue to raise revenue by duties on 
imports, and therefore the discussion of that principle is 
an absolute waste of time. After our public debt is paid 
in full, our expenditures can hardly be much below $200,- 
000,000 ; and if this is levied in a business-like and intelli- 
gent manner, it will afford adequate protection to every 
industrial interest in the United States. The assertion 
that the Constitution permits the levying of duties in 
favor of protection ' for the sake of protection ' is equally 
uncalled for and unnecessary. Both are alike delusory, 
and not involved in any practical administrative policy. 
If brought to the test, I believe neither would stand for a 
day. Protection for the sake of protection is prohibition, 
pure and simple, of importation ; and if there be no impor- 
tation there will be no duties collected, and consequently 
no revenue, leaving the necessary expenses of the Govern- 
ment to be collected by direct taxes — for internal taxes 
would interfere with the protection principle, and when 
the people were generally asked to bear the burden of 
heavy taxation to sustain class legislation and the interests 
of a portion of our people at the expense of the great bulk 
of our population there would be an emphatic and con- 
clusive negative. So, too, with free trade ; there is hardly 
a man in public life who advocates it pure and simple. 
Nobody wants direct taxation, although it would bring 
taxation so near and so constantly before the people that 
Congress would hesitate long before it voted the sums of 
money it now does, if not for improper at least for ques- 
tionable purposes. 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 647 

"I favor what Mr. Jefferson declared to be 'discrimi- 
nating duties,' what General Jackson described as *a 
judicious tariff,' and what Silas Wright designated as , 
'incidental protection.' To accomplish these ends wisely 
and well requires the greatest circumspection and the exer- 
cise of the most careful judgment. 

" I favor a commission 'to take into consideration and 
to thoroughly investigate all the various questions relating 
to the agricultural, commercial, mercantile, manufactur- 
ing, mining and industrial interests of the United States, 
so far as the same may be necessary to the establishment 
of a judicious tariff.' 

" It will, in my judgment, bring about a revision, abso- 
lutely essential, at an earlier day than in any other way 
now feasible. If I did not sincerely entertain this convic- 
tion, no member on this floor would be more opposed to 
the pending proposition than myself. I believe that the 
arrangement of our system of tariff duties should not rest 
upon any partisan policy regulated by existing parties, but 
that, on the contrary, it should, in a measure, be divorced 
from politics, and not be a bone of periodical contention in 
and out of Congress. It should occupy the higher level 
and command the best efforts of statesmanship of every 
party. Menschikoff, one of the ablest as well as one of the 
most successful ministers of modern times, said : ' States- 
manship is a practical knowledge of a State's resources.' 

"A judicious and properly laid tariff is the measure 
of those resources. It should be framed so as to give 
stability to our business at home and our trade abroad. 
Unnecessary and causeless changes are injurious both to 
the revenues and to the industries and commerce of the 



548 OUR GREAT MEN. 

people. Remedial measures to cure defects and equalize 
burdens and benefits are of the greatest advantage when 
promptly and properly enacted. It would be a blessing 
of incalculable value if we could so arrange our legislation 
as to readjust in the main duties on imports only once 
in every ten years, and then have them based upon the 
statistics and widest information of our census tables. 
In this way business men in every branch of production 
and commerce would know how safely and judiciously to 
conduct their transactions, great and small. 

* * * « « « 

"The Senate has shown at this session an indis- 
position to respond to any effort which might have been 
made in this House, for it has anticipated the House in 
the creation of a tariff commission by an overwhelming 
vote. It has been frequently charged in this debate that 
the object of this bill was to delay. There is no justifi- 
cation, in my opinion, for such an assertion. Its inev- 
itable tendency and effect must be in the nature of things 
to hasten a thorough and speedy final adjustment of all 
questions in dispute as to tariff amendment and reform. 
When the ground of action is uncertain and the elements 
of the problem are not fully known, or are vaguely and 
imperfectly understood, legislation is generally injurious. 
Indeed, it may be said in such cases that when it escapes 
doing serious injustice to the industries of the people or 
to the revenues of the Government, it has the result 
always to be avoided by wise and prudent legislators, oi 
irritation and excitement, disturbance of values, and often- 
times individual ruin. 

" Self-interest controls the world, however much men 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 649 

may turn fine periods and grow eloquent in swelling sen- 
tences about abstractions; and while men will suffer 
patiently and yield willingly to stern necessity, they will 
not submit quietly to what is causelessly and idly to their 
loss and annoyance. 

"When every element which can enter into tariff 
revision is known; when every interest, large and small, 
is scanned and measured; when proper objects of taxation 
are reached and adjusted in their proper relations ; when 
those items are eliminated which only embarrass and pro- 
duce confusion, then indeed tariff legislation is made easy 
and sure of happiest consequences. 

" The charge that we are improperly parting with our 
constitutional functions in the passage of this bill is 
invalid, and should have no influence upon our deliber- 
ations and action. 

"The duties delegated to the commission do not 
extend beyond the power of recommendation. Yet I 
hope and believe their review when presented will be of 
so broad, comprehensive and catholic a character as to 
command, as a basis of action in reform of taxation, the 
approval of thinking men and of all parties. 

" The fourth section of the bill provides that the com- 
mission shall make its final report of the results of its 
investigation and the testimony taken in the course of 
the same not later than the first Monday of December, 
1882, and it shall cause the testimony taken to be printed 
from time to time and distributed to members of Con- 
gress by the Public Printer, and it shall also cause to be 
printed for the use of Congress two thousand copies of 
its final report, too^etJier with the testimony. 



550 OUK GREAT MEN. 

" Can language be more explicit to prevent delay ? It 
means tariff revision, intelligent and just, at the earliest 
practical moment. I trust that after the passage of this 
act — of which at present there seems but little doubt — 
authority will be given to the Committee on Ways and 
Means by this House to enable it to assemble about the 
10th day of November next and proceed immediately to 
formulate a bill based upon the testimony taken, and 
which they will have, with all other members, received 
from time to time. Then, at the opening of the session in 
December, that committee will be ready to report forth- 
with its measure of relief to the House for action before 
the Committee on Aj^propriations will require the time 
for general appropriation bills. 

" I have given notice of a purpose to offer an amend- 
ment providing that this commission shall be composed of 
two members of the Senate and three members of the 
House, with four civilian experts, the latter to be ap- 
pointed by the President, by and with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate. My purpose in favoring a mixed 
commission is that there may be upon the floor of each 
House some responsible sponsors for the report, who will 
feel it incumbent upon them to see that it does not go for 
naught, but is supported and pushed to practical results. 

"Now, I might add that, while I have no direct assur- 
ance of the fact, yet I am led to believe that the President 
will, in the composition of this commission, whether exclu- 
sively of civilians or only partially, select men who have 
given a life-time to the study of the history and philoso- 
phy of tariff taxation. •* 




SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 551 

"We are no longer a few scattered, isolated colonies 
of three millions of people, hugging the coast from Massa- 
chusetts to Georgia. In 1880 we were a united nation of 
fifty millions of inhabitants, with industries of the great- 
est diversity, and grown to such size and power as to con- 
test the markets of the world, and with a military pres- 
tige that has surprised and kept in awe the most warlike 
nations. 

" In the year 1903 we are told that, according to the 
ordinary rate of increase, we will have one hundred mill- 
ions of people. Is there any human mind that can fore- 
see all the possibilities of a free republic of such vast pro- 
portions leading the coming century in wise legislation? 
Is there one so foolhardy who will stand up and say he 
knows all about it, and that the wondrous ways of God 
shall bend to his peremptory dictation ? If there be, he 
can vote against this bill." 

The following is a short speech by Mr. Randall on 
civil service: 

" Mr. Chairman, I really did have hope that this prop- 
osition from the Committee on Appropriations would be 
discussed entirely from a public standpoint. I do not 
need to tax my memory or to refresh the recollection of this 
House in regard to the utterances of gentlemen a few 
years ago, when they were attempting (to use a familiar 
phrase) to starve to death the Civil Service Commission, 
or to compare it with their language and conduct within 
the last twenty-four hours as to this proposed amendment. 
If they can reconcile their speeches at that time with the 
language that they have used on yesterday and to-day, it 
is not incumbent on me to run any line of comparison, or 



652 OUR GREAT MEN. 

to call attention to their inconsistency and duplicity. I 
leave them to reconcile their conduct and their voices 
with their own self-respect. 

" It has been alleged that these amendments are for 
the purpose of destroying the civil-service law. I main- 
tain that the two propositions which the amendment con- 
tains have no such object, and that when they come to be 
inserted in the law, or to be made a part of the regula- 
tions in any other way, they will operate upon both parties 
alike, without any partisanship whatever. First, as to 
age limitation, that is not a part of the law which gentle- 
men are here boasting they voted for, and I venture the 
assertion that if there had been a clause in the act of the 
16th of January, 1883, which proposed to proscribe the 
American citizen, after he had reached the age of thirty- 
five or forty-five, from being eligible to public station, 
there is not a man here who will say that he would have 
voted for such a provision. How did that get in ? It got 
in at the will of a single individual, and no man has had 
the courage to utter here, either yesterday or to-day, a 
sentiment in favor of that part of the regulations, 
or against the committee's amendment which applies 
to it. 

"How does this matter operate? We may safely 
draw the conclusion that the language to which I have 
referred was inserted in the regulations for the purpose of 
excluding from examination members of one political 
party. Let me illustrate this : There is not a man who 
was connected with the administration of this Govern- 
ment in 1861, and removed because of his politics, or for 
other reasons, who is not by this regulation debarred at 



-.J 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 553 

this time from examination, notwithstanding the fact that 
his experience in previous years, and his subsequent cult- 
ure and development, might capacitate him for being a 
more efficient officer than any of those now in service. 
Nay, more ; the very effect of this regulation is to exclude 
more than half of the people who vote for us as Repre- 
sentatives from the possibility of securing any position 
within the classified service of this Government. 

" Do you tell me we should not assail that rule? I say 
that now and in the future, here and everywhere, I will 
agitate the repeal of so monstrous, so unjust, so indefensi- 
ble, a proposition. 

"I say that this civil-service law was made by Con- 
gress; that the power of legislation rests here; that the 
one man to whom I have referred has undertaken to legis- 
late and to deprive Congress of that power which should 
be lodged only here. I speak with deliberation, and I 
want the Chief Executive of this Government to hear what 
I have to say on this subject. What I say in regard to 
this is no assault upon the President; but I affirm to-day 
that the representatives of the people, by the enactment 
of these regulations, have been deceived and cheated, 
have been deprived of their rights, which, standing here, 
they ought to have defended in behalf of the people who 
sent them here as their representatives. 

"Mr. Cleveland is not responsible for these regula- 
tions. More than that, it is but a brief time since Mr. 
Cleveland could possibly have had any influence upon this 
commission; and, following the gentleman from North 
Carolina, I will say that I hope a change will soon be 
made, and that he will give an administration of this civil- 



554 OUR GREAT MEN. 

service act that will do justice in respect to the matters I 

complain of. 

♦ ****♦ 

"We do not, by the committee's amendment, interfere 
in any degree with the law itself; it is the undue regula- 
tions we seek to alter. We have only sought to say to 
those who should be the servants of this House and the 
Senate, with the Executive approval, that they must not 
attempt to exclude from participation in the offices of the 
Government any American citizens who are mentally and 
physically capable of discharging, with honor and efii- 
ciency, the duties of official station. 

"A word as to the other amendment proposed. I say, 
as I have said of the first part of the amendment, that this 
also operates on both parties alike, for the clause with ref- 
erence to age affects members of the Republican party as 
much as it does those of the Democratic party— a discrimi- 
nation against all men alike. 

" While we do not desire any abridgment of the right 
of the Executive and those under him, with reference to 
appointments, yet we do not think it proper to permit 
these three members of the Civil Service Commission to 
exercise the prerogative of sending to the appointing 
power only four names from which selections must be 
made. Remember that this regulation is no part of the 
law. We propose to say that every man who, under the 
law, is eligible, who, upon examination, secures an aver- 
age above sixty-five, may be selected for appointment, if 
the appointing power, in its wisdom, after such examina- 
tion, shall discover him to possess the mental and physical 
qualifications for the particular office which he seeks. 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 555 

"My colleague from Pennsylvania said to-day, with 
great candor, that he would prefer this selection should be 
confined to three or two, or even one. That was my 
understanding of his declaration; and it was a strange 
sound from the 'machine' politics of Pennsylvania, in 
view of the history of his party in my State. 

"Before I forget it, I wish to correct the gentleman 
from North Carolina as to Andrew Johnson. Andrew 
Johnson never possessed the i)ower to be a spoilsman, 
for no sooner had he become President than the Republi- 
can party tied his hands in reference to the power of 
official appointments and removals by the tenure- of-office 
act. That was the act of the Republican party. Sir, I 
ask a comparison of the past course of that party with 
the self-righteousness of the Republican orators on this 
floor within the past twenty-four hours, and let that com- 
parison show where 'the cloven foot' is. 

"Mr. Chairman, I have not, nor has my honorable 
colleague on the committee, the gentleman from Indiana, 
whom, perhaps, the public press has deprived of some of 
the credit incident to this proposition, ever designed to 
interfere with the civil-service act. That act was the 
result of a universal condemnation of the methods of the 
Republican party, and the united voice of the country 
cried out in behalf of the enactment of such a law as 
would stay these abuses of public trust. They were then 
trembling in apprehension that they would be deprived 
of the administration of this Government at the following 
fall election of 1884, and that I believe was as much the 
reason for their support of the measure, which they had 
in every shape and form theretofore condemned when it 



Oo6 OUR GREAT MEN. 

» 

was likely to interfere with patronage of their administra- 
tion, and which they had tried to starve to death." 

In some remarks on the use of the surplus in the 
Treasury to pay the National debt, Mr. Randall said : 

" Mr. Chairman, I listened with great respect and 
close attention throughout the remarks of the gentleman 
from JN'ew York for the purpose of discovering whether 
there was apparent cause for the dark cloud of prophecy 
which he has pictured heretofore and again in connection 
with the proposed legislation, and whether his apprehen- 
sion had any substantial basis. I say to that gentleman 
that I do not find, according to the mode of financial 
figuring which I secured from the common arithmetic 
rather than from experience in the management of public 
affairs, anything that justifies the dangers and disasters 
he prophesies from the passage of this resolution. 

" This is not a silver question. It is a question as to 
whether we have the money in the Treasury undisposed 
of, and against which there are no legitimate claims, to 
the extent of seventy millions of dollars, so that that 
amount of money can be used in the manner suggested 
in the resolution in liquidation of that much of the inter- 
est-bearing debt of the Government. We propose in this 
resolution to do just what has been done in the past, 
when, in pursuance of substantially the same princij^le 
and practice, we reduced the public debt |1, 200, 000, 000. 
Nay, more: we say as the forty-four and one-half millions 
of dollars added to the sinking fund during the last fiscal 
year was managed, so shall this seventy millions be man- 
aged ; and I suggest that in the liquidation of the forty- 
four and one-half millions of bonds carried to the sinking 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 557 

fund during that period there never was a dollar of gold 
employed, and there was only about thirteen millions of 
United States notes used in the liquidation of that amount 
of debt. 

" I do not hesitate, Mr. Chairman, to say to-day that 
if this proposition prevails, the amount of United States 
notes' now in the Treasury is entirely adequate for the 
liquidation of the entire amount as authorized to be paid 
by the proposition of the gentleman from Illinois. 

" I will tell you what their figures show : That there 
are $57,000,000 of gold there in excess of the ^100,000,000 
held there for the redemption of the United States notes 
outstanding. There are $22,000,000 there of United 
States notes, and $14,000,000 of other money in public 
depositories belonging to the Grovernment of the United 
States, making in the aggregate about ninety-three mill- 
ions of money in the possession of the Government, 
against which there is in fact no claim. I do not want 
any gentleman to confuse this question with the apjDre- 
hension which prevails in the mind of the gentleman 
from New York. This is a mere matter of business man- 
agement. We have unemployed in the Treasury of the 
United States, as I have shown, approaching ninety-three 
millions of money, and we say that to the extent of 
$70,000,000 it ought to be used in the liquidation of the 
public debt just as we have liquidated $1,200,000,000 of 
the public debt heretofore, which has commanded the 
wonder and admiration of every civilized nation. 

"I assert, without questioning anybody's motives, 
that if these bonds that are due and payable at the option 
of the Government, to wit, about one hundred and 

34 



558 OUR GREAT MEN. 

thirty-five millions, one hundred millions of which are 
held by the Government as security for the national bank 
circulation, were held by individual capitalists, we would 
not hear any complaint against the proposition. It is 
because it bears upon the national banks to the extent 
of one hundred millions of three per cents, that we hear 
this outcry, which is the mainspring of the hostility to 
the measure. 

" I say also that I know of no better way for a gov- 
ernment to strengthen its credit than by paying its inter- 
est-bearing bonds. That is the way we have done in the 
past. If you want to strengthen still further the public 
credit I do not object; nor do I find in this proposition 
introduced by the gentleman from Illinois objection that 
the one hundred millions shall be held as a redeeming 
fund toward the three hundred and forty-six millions of 
United States notes in circulation. If the Treasury 
officials should have an apprehension in connection with 
the large amount that we propose to liquidate by this 
proposition of the public indebtednes in addition to the 
forty-odd millions due during the current year as a pay- 
ment to the sinking fund, then attach a limitation to the 
amount to be had. 

" There is that amount of money. The statement of 
the gentleman from Ohio immediately in front of me to 
that efi'ect has not been controverted, nor can it be. It 
can not be claimed that the money is not there, for the 
Treasury reports shows that it is there ; and all we ask is 
that that amount of money shall be used in the liquida- 
tion of the public indebtedness. That is what any busi- 
ness man would do. That is like to what the Govern- 



^5 



SAMUEL J. RANDALL. V>. 659 

ment has this done. And why all scare at thJ^'^.time 
(after having paid more than a thousand millions ol.the 
public debt just as is proposed in this joint resolution)^ 
when we suggest the propriety of paying seventy millions 
more ? There is nothing in it, gentlemen. The truth is, ^;' 
the Government of the United States has the money and 
can pay this amount as provided for, with the use of less 
than the amount of United States notes that are to-day in 
the Treasury of the United States, because experience 
has shown in the case of the forty-four and a half mill- 
ions paid to the sinking fund that it only required some 
thirteen millions to handle that amount of payment. 

"A like amount of United States notes, as I am 
informed, find their way back into the Treasury gen- 
erally within ten days. The silver certificates come back, 
as I am advised, in large quantities within six days. I feel 
assured that within thirty days there would be returned 
to the Treasury of the United States, through the receipts 
for customs, which are paid to-day to the extent of about 
eighty-two and one-half per cent, in United States notes, a 
sufiicient sum to enable the Grovernment to handle every 
payment of ten millions a month, just as they had han- 
dled the prior ten million payment." 




Hon. JOHN V. L. FINDLAY, 

OF MARYLAND. 




[OHN y. L. FINDLAY, of Baltimore, wlio 
represents the Fourth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Maryland in the National House 
of Representatives, was born the 12th of 
December, 1839. He received a classical education at 
Princeton, New Jersey; then studied law, and was 
admitted to practice. He was for a time State and City 
Director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. 
He has been a member of the Maryland Legislature. 
He was also Collector of Internal Revenue for one of the 
Baltimore districts, and City Solicitor for Baltimore. 

He was elected to the Forty-eighth Congress and 
re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a Democrat. 

In his speech on "Labor Arbitration" in the House of 
Representatives, in March, 1886, Mr. Findlay said : 

"Suppose this bill had been a law when the trouble 
in the West, which has been the immediate occasion of it, 
occurred. On one side you would have had the corpora- 
tion, on the other its employes, behind them the masses of 
the people whose commerce and business were impeded by 
the strike, and on the statute-books of the United States 
a law which afforded an easy mode of escape out of the 

(660) 



JOHN V. L. FINDLAT. 661 

difficulty. Will any man say that the whole force of 
public opinion would not have been brought to bear in 
favor of settling this difficulty by arbitration as provided 
by that law? Can it be reasonably concluded that either 
of the parties to the controversy would have been willing 
to protract it in the face of this public opinion? I think 
not; and, therefore, believe that the very existence of the 
law will of itself promote voluntary arbitration by cre- 
ating a public opinion in favor of it which it will be diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to resist. The strongest argument 
made against the bill has gone to the point that as far as 
such mission was concerned the bill conferred no rights 
which did not already exist at common law. 

" But that argument does not strike me as sound. To 
point out to litigants a common-law method of settling 
differences by arbitrament and consent is one thing. To 
show the suffering public that a statute has made it easy 
to have these differences settled in this way, without cost 
to either party, is, in my judgment, quite a different 
thing. It puts an argument in every man's mouth, simple 
to make and difficult to answer — an argument which says 
in effect to both corporations and employes : We, the pub- 
lic, have some right ; you are not the only sufferers by 
this disagreement; we outnumber you ten to one; our 
business, our livelihood, our very existence, depends upon 
a prompt and reasonable settlement of the difficulty ; the 
law has provided the means for such a settlement, and we 
demand that you adopt these means and permit the wheels 
of commerce to again revolve on their accustomed racks. 

"But in the absence of such a law, what would the 
argument be? Simply that it was a duty to arbitrate, 



562 OUR GREAT MEN. 

without answering the objections as to expense and the 
difficulty of enforcing attendance of witnesses, obtaining 
testimony and executing the award. In the other case I 
have put, it is a duty made easy, and a duty besides that 
has the sanction of positive enactment by the National 
Legislature. I think, then, that the bill will promote 
arbitration. Will it eifectuate it ? Great stress has been 
laid upon this part of the argument against the bill. It 
has been insisted that the mere suggestion of a decree 
without compulsory provision for its enforcement is an 
idle form of words without force or virtue. It has been 
denounced as a sham and a trick, an innocent poultice, a 
harmless application on the outside for what is a deep- 
seated internal malady, and much other denunciation 
more or less pointed. 

" I have listened to these arguments with all the 
respect due to their authors, but I can not bring my mind 
to the conclusion that the same public opinion which has 
hushed this clamor and reduced the enemies of the bill 
into a pitiful minority of 29 as against 199 in favor will 
not be potent enough to give eifect to the bill after it 
becomes a law. I do not believe there is a railroad cor- 
poration in the country that would dare to resist for 
twenty-four hours the solemn judgment of our authorized 
board of arbitration, in which it af)pears voluntarily, by 
its chosen representatives, holding its sessions, performing 
its work and certifying its conclusions under the sanction 
of the law-making power of the United States. Such cor- 
porations, beside being exposed to the criticism of the 
press, are amenable to j)ublic ojDinion, not only as the 
source of legislation in the States, but of those efficient, 



GEORGE C. CABELL. 563 

although indirect, disciplinary methods of which juries, 
quite aside from the merits of the particular case, are 
sometimes made the beneficent agents." 

—^^^ — 

Hon. GEORGE 0. CABELL, 

OF VIRGINIA. 




|E0RGE C. CABELL, of Danville, who rep- 
resents the Fifth Congressional District of 
Virginia in the National House of Represent- 
atives, was born in Danville, Virginia, Jan- 
uary 23d, 1837. His early education he received from his 
father, who kept him under his personal instruction until 
he was twelve years of age. He then attended the Dan- 
ville Academy for some six years, after which he taught 
school and studied law in his leisure hours. He attended 
the Law Department of the University of Virginia in 
1857, and commenced practicing law in Danville in 1858. 

He was for a time editor of The Bepuhlican and then 
of The Democratic Ajppeal, both of them papers published 
in Danville. 

In September, 1858, he was elected Commonwealth's 
Attorney for Danville, and held the position until April, 
1861, when he volunteered as a private in the Confederate 
Army. He served throughout the war, and at the close 
of hostilities held the rank of Colonel. 

After the war he resumed the practice of his profes- 



564 OUR GREAT MEN. 

sion. He was a member of the Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, 
Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth 
Congresses, to which he was elected as a Democrat. 

The following remarks were made by Mr. Cabell in 
answering Mr. Butterworth concerning the South : 

" I now desire to refer to what was said by the gentle- 
man from Ohio. That gentleman has gone out of the 
legitimate range of debate to tell the Southern people how 
wicked they are, what bad methods they pursue, and with 
propriety they could amend their ways. We may be 
obliged to gentlemen who give this kindly advice to us, 
but when we know their motives, and that they talk of 
things of which they know nothing, we feel a reasonable 
degree of incredulity, for which I am satisfied we will be 
excused. Gentlemen assume to talk of affairs in the 
South, gathering their information, I suppose, from irre- 
sponsible parties, and especially from that miserable set 
of vamj^ires and vermin who were sent down among us 
after the war, and who fell upon us with more blighting 
effect than the locusts and lice of Egypt. You get your 
coloring from creatures of that character, and the gentle- 
man from Ohio, as if he had heard nothing but gospel 
truth, proceeds to lecture this side of the House, especially 
the members from the South, upon the wickedness, rapine, 
bloodshed and ballot-box stuffing which he is pleased to 
assign to the Southern section of the country. 

" Now, it is true, Mr. Chairman, that we have had our 
troubles down South. We have had many difficulties to 
overcome and many hard problems to solve. These were 
incident, perhaps, to the changed condition of affairs in 
the country. 



GEORGE C. CABELL. 565 

''But I can say, and say it truly, I know nothing of 
any occurrences as the gentleman and. others like him 
have laid to our charge. Such things have not taken 
place in my country, and I speak for that ; I speak within 
my knowledge, and I say all this talk, or a great deal of 
it, and the stuff you hear from intermeddlers, is simply 
stuff indeed. Many of these harrowing stories from the 
South have been brought you by creatures that were so 
miserable that you spewed them out of your own country, 
and, to our great grief, they fell down upon us. I have 
often wondered why they had been made at all, and I 
could never solve the problem except upon the principle 
that God Almighty, in His infinite wisdom, made these 
creatures to show what sort of a thing He could make, in 
all its horrors and meanness, when He made the carpet- 
bagger and dropped him down into the Southern States. 

"The gentleman from Ohio dwells with great persist- 
ency upon the lessons learned from his faithful allies, the 
'carpet-baggers,' in regard to 'ballot-box stuffing,' riots 
and disturbances at elections down South. Now, I will 
simply say to friend Butterworth that I knew he was 
writhing in the 'gall of bitterness,' but never, before his 
speech, realized that he was so closely bound in the ' bonds 
of iniquity.' I never, before his speech, so fully under- 
stood the difficulties that compassed him about, and the 
election troubles that had overtaken that goodly and godly 
people from whom he came. 

" But is it not a pretty state of affairs, and a beauti- 
ful spectacle exhibited to this side of the House, when 
with one side of his mouth the gentleman pitches into the 
Southern people and abuses them for their conduct, and 



566 OUR GREAT MEN. 

from the other pours out a horrid volume on his own peo- 
ple, which, if true — and I have no right to doubt it — 
shows beyond all question that if there is meanness and 
eorruj^tion and villainy displayed in elections in any coun- 
try on God's green earth, it is in the State of Ohio, and 
especially in the city of Cincinnati, of which that gentle- 
man seems so proud? I say to the gentleman, first cast 
the beams out of the eyes of your own people before you 
look after the motes in ours. Go sweep around your own 
door; you will find ample employment. Mend the bad 
methods of your own country before you undertake to lect- 
ure other people upon political morality." 



--^^'^^^ — 



Hon. WILLIAM R. cox, 

OF NORTH CAROLINA. 




IlLLIAM R. cox, of Raleigh, was born 
in Halifax County, North Carolina. He 
removed to Tennessee, where he was edu- 
cated, graduating at Franklin College, near 
Xushville, and also at the Lebanon Law School. For a 
time he practiced law in Nashville, but returned to North 
Carolina previous to the breaking out of the war. After 
his return to North Carolina he chose the life of a planter, 
and still continues it in connection with his legal pursuits. 
He left his business and his home to follow the god 



WILLIAM R. COX. 567 

of war. He entered the Confederate Army as Major, 
and was promoted to Brigadier-General. He was with 
Lee at the smTender at Appomattox. At the close of the 
war he resumed the practice of his profession. He was 
elected Solicitor of the Metropolitan District, and held 
the office for six years. He was appointed Judge of the 
Superior Court of the Metropolitan District, and resigned 
near the close of his term to enter the field for a nomina- 
tion to Congress. 

He is a Trustee of the University of the South. 

He was a Delegate to the National Democratic Con- 
vention in 1868, and for several years served as Chairman 
of the State Democratic Committee of North Carolina. 
He was elected to the Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth and 
Forty-ninth Congresses as a Democrat. 

The following is a portion of a speech by Mr. Cox on 
the classification and compensation of public officers : 

"The bill provides that the compensation of those 
employed in the Departments, as far as practicable, shall 
be uniform for persons doing the same kind of work. The 
classification shall not extend to officers confirmed by the 
Senate, nor to laborers employed in the Departments. 
The commission shall report the practice as to substitutes, 
furloughs and leaves of absence in the service, and in what 
respect, if any, such practice may be improved, and 
whether with advantage, and upon what conditions, a cler- 
ical force may be provided, the members of which shall 
serve from time to time in the diff'erent Departments or 
offices as the exigencies of the public service may require. 
The compensation of the members of the commission 
taken from civil life is to be fixed by the President, and 



568 OUR GREAT MEN. 

the sum proposed to be appropriated for this service is 
$8,000. It is believed that less than this amount will 
secure the services of first-class men for this work, as it 
is not expected they will be engaged in their labors 
exceeding six months. The surplus, if any, of course, 
will be converted into the Treasury. 

" The selection of a mixed commission is believed to 
be most judicious. Those taken from private life will 
represent the great non-official, bread-winning classes of 
the country, while the two detailed from the Departments 
will bring to the consideration of the subject the prac- 
tical, ripened experience obtained through their famil- 
iarity with the departmental work. 

"From the President's evident desire to see this 
Government conducted on business principles, from his 
oft-exjDressed wish to see the civil service elevated and 
purified, it is believed that the greatest wisdom would be 
exercised in the selection of able and competent men for 
the duties they are expected to perform, and that they 
would shed an amount of light upon the subject com- 
mitted to their care which would be most beneficial to the 
country and stimulate Congress to institute such changes 
in the administration of the executive departments as 
would be not only more just to its faithful, honest and 
industrious employes, but save annually hundreds of 
thousands of dollars to the tax-payers; for the working 
bees would be separated from the drones, who would be 
expelled from the hive. 

"The proj^er classification and arrangement of the 
employes in the Departments would be of incalculable 
advantage to the members of the House in making 



WILLIAM R. COX. 669 

appropriations. It is well known that with the exception 
of the Committees on Appropriations their reports are 
sealed books to the members of the House. The 
amounts annually appropriated are so large and so com- 
plex to the average Congressman as to preclude an under- 
standing of their details, except by the better informed, 
who have had the advantage of hearing the discussions 
preparatory to presenting the bills for consideration. 
And the overworked Appropriations Committees find it 
almost impossible to master the details. 

"The question may be asked, Why can not these 
changes be made by the chiefs of the Departments? A 
sufficient reply might be to answer the question by ask- 
ing another: Why have they not heretofore been made? 
It is sufficient to know that it has not been done, and 
that the service has grown so cumbrous and the abuses 
been of such long standing that, however disposed the 
chief of a Department may be to make proper changes, 
it would be nearly imj^ossible for him to do so alone and 
unaided. He would naturally be resisted by those around 
him, his daily associates, who oppose any changes calcu- 
lated to increase their burdens and responsibilities. He 
would be carped at as an innovator by the more slothful ; 
and, however good his intentions, he would be discour- 
aged and rendered unhappy by the opposition he would 
encounter. Further, in many of the larger bureaus the 
chiefs but seldom see all their employes, and only know 
them by the names on their books. 

**♦♦♦• 

"We are reminded of the perversions which may 



570 OUR GREAT MEN. 

exist in the executive departments without correction by 
what occurs in this and the other end of the Capitol, 
in the gradual increasing of the number of employes and 
incidental expenses, and can readily see how difficult it 
is to amend them. Within the last ten years the 
employes of this House have increased over one hun- 
dred, and at the other end of the Capitol in a greater 
proportion, while our expenses continue to augment with 
no unequal stride." 

Hon. WILKINSON CALL, 

OF FLORIDA. 




IlLKIXSON CALL, of Jacksonville, is by 
birth a Kentuckian. He was born in Rus- 
sellville, Logan County, Kentucky, the 9th of 
January, 1834. He availed himself of all 
the educational advantages that came within his reach, 
concluding with the study of law, and after due prepara- 
tion he was admitted to the Bar. With his growth j)hys- 
ically and intellectually there grew an intense yearning 
for a broader and deeper life, a wider sphere of usefulness, 
than it was possible to have in the staid town of his nativ- 
ity. So, emigrating to Florida, he settled in Jacksonville, 
then a town of some two thousand inhabitants ; and during 
his residence there has watched the development of that 
lovely village on the magnificent St. John's into a city of 
twelve thousand inhabitants, and the most imjDortant com- 



WILKINSON CALL. 571 

mercial center of the State. And the success of Mr. Call 
in his profession and business has been as phenomenal as 
the growth of the city in which he has chosen to make 
his home. 

Immediately after the close of the civil war Mr. Call 
was elected United States Senator, but on account of the 
unsettled condition of atfairs politic at that time he was 
not allowed to take his seat. In 1879, however, he suc- 
ceeded the then Re]3ublican Senator, and has been an 
active member of that body ever since. He is an ardent 
Democrat, and always acts with decision where his State 
and party are concerned. Mr. Call has always stood for 
the people as against cor^^orations and monopolies, as his 
speeches prove. 

The following is a portion of his s^^eech on a j)etition 
asking Congress to extend a railroad grant which expired 
in 1866, and to re-enact it. Mr. Call said : 

"This action by Congress would, in my opinion, sub- 
stantially be to recognize and give its approval to about 
$15,000,000 or $16,000,000 of fictitious securities in the 
shape of watered stock and fictitious bonded indebtedness 
placed on this railroad property above either its original 
cost or the price paid for it by the persons now holding it. 

" It would be for Congress to give its approval to the 
methods and practices by which $3,000,000,000 of fraudu- 
lent and fictitious securities have been put upon this coun- 
try in defiance of law and without the consent of the taxing 
power, and by which an annual tax of between two and 
four hundred millions of dollars is imposed on the labor and 
industries of the country without the authority of law, but 
in the forms of law, and with a certainty and a relentless 



572 OUR GREAT MEN. 

power which will require the greatest efforts on the part 
of the people to prevent and overcome — a tax on locomo- 
tion and transportation paid by every man, woman and 
child, a tax equal in amount and more oppressive than the 
entire taxation required for the support of the Federal 
Government, with its great army of pensioners, all to pay 
the interest on fraudulent and unreal securities, issued 
without consideration and made operative through the 
connivance and permission of the tribunals charged by 
the people with the protection of the public and the just 
enforcement of the law. 

" It asks an imposition of between five and eight hun- 
dred thousand dollars of annual taxation upon the people 
of Florida, in the shape of transportation, to pay the inter- 
est upon these securities; and it further, in effect, asks 
that it be put in the power of this railroad company, or 
of those who hold the fictitious securities, to take from the 
settlers upon the public lands in the State of Florida 
between a million and a half and two million dollars as a 
contribution to the great property which they have already 
accumulated by gratuities from the United States and State. 

"We are therefore confronted with the question on 
which the Senate lately acted in the interstate commerce 
bill, which the Senate passed by a vote of forty-four in 
favor of the bill and four against — the question which of 
all others now menaces the country and oppresses the 
people, increasing the cost of living and depressing the 
business of the country, which has deprived a million of 
men of employment and made hundreds of thousands of 
starving women and children." 



Hon. JOHN H. ROGERS, 



OF ARKANSAS. 




|OH]S' H. ROGERS, of Fort Smith, who 
represents the Fourth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Arkansas in the National Congress, 
is a native of Bertie County, North Caro- 
lina. Here he was born October 9th, 1845. When he 
was seven years old his parents removed to Mississippi. 
He volunteered in the Confederate Army when but a 
mere boy, and served till the close of the war. He 
received his education at Centre College, in Danville, 
Kentucky, and at the University of Mississippi, in 
Oxford, Mississippi, graduating at the University in 
1868, and the same year he was admitted to the Bar. 
In 1869 he located in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and com- 
menced the practice of his profession. He was elected 
Circuit Judge in 1877, and was re-elected in 1878, but 
resigned in May, 1882. He was elected to the Forty- 
eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses as a Democrat. 

In his speech on the pensions appropriation bill Mr. 
Rogers said : 

*'Mr. Chairman, the Democratic party now in power 
may learn a valuable lesson from this testimony. In 
every Department of this Government to-day nearly every 



35 



(573) 



574 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



chief of a division and some of the heads of bureaus have 
been retained. But few changes, comparatively speaking, 
have been made ; and yet the Democratic party, charged 
with the responsibility of government, must and will be 
held responsible by the country for the correct administra- 
tion of affairs. 

" If this imj)roper correspondence, in violation of the 
rules of the Pension Office, could be secretly and success- 
fully carried on under a Republican administration, to 
the detriment of the public service and to the demoraliza- 
tion of that bureau, without detection by its chief until it 
was brought to light by an examining committee of the 
House of Representatives, what may we expect when 
these same people are retained in office under an admin- 
istration to which they are unfriendly? I invite the 
attention of the country to the candid consideration of the 
question presented. This very man Jacobs, of whom I 
have spoken, and Welty, also, are still in the Pension 
Office ; and many other persons whose names have been 
mentioned in this evidence are still in the public service, 
some of them in important places. 

" There are other branches of the 2:)ublic service sub- 
jected to the same abuses that sprung up in the Pension 
Office. The railway mail service, for instance, ramifies 
the entire country, and is out from under the immediate 
supervision of the heads of the Departments. I may at 
some future day have occasion to refer, in this connection, 
to that branch of the j^ublic service. 

"Mr. Chairman, I may be pardoned for this brief 
digression. I now return to the subject under considera- 
tion that I may point out one other abuse in the Pension 



JOHN H. ROGERS. 575 

Office developed by that investigation. During the 
investigation referred to, the committee required Mr. 
Brock, a clerk in the Pension Office, whose duty it was to 
keep an account of the leaves of absence of the various 
employes of that office, to prepare a statement. He pre- 
pared a partial statement, and it is found on pages 228, 
229 and 230 of the published report. It shows that 
thirty-nine employes in that bureau were absent with pay, 
in excess of their annual leave, for various periods of time 
during that year. In almost every instance this leave 
was granted during the fall elections, and granted by the • 
Acting Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Joslyn, and without 
the recommendation of the Acting Commissioner of Pen- 
sions, Mr. Clarke. 

"Now, Mr. Chairman, these abuses were all developed 
by that investigation. The attention of Mr. Dudley was 
called to them. He had every opportunity of reading the 
testimony, and I believe that in no instance has he been 
able to explain, upon any reasonable hypothesis, why these 
abuses were permitted. In many instances he asserted 
his ignorance of these things ; but he could not hope to 
be otherwise when his own time was being devoted to the 
Ohio and Indiana campaigns to the neglect of the duties 
of the Pension Office." 




Hon. GEORGE F. EDMUNDS, 

OF VEEMONT. 




EORGE F. EDMUJN'DS, of Burlington, is> 
of Puritanic-Quaker descent. He was born 
in Richmond, Vermont, February 1st, 1828. 
He received a good public-school education, 
and instruction from a private tutor. He studied law and 
was admitted to the Bar at Burlington, Vermont, and 
early earned the reputation of being one of the leading 
barristers of the State. 

During the years 1854, '55, '57, '58 and '59 he was a 
member of the State Legislature of Vermont; three of 
those years he served as Speaker. He was elected to the 
State Senate in 1861, and, for the two years he was then, 
was its presiding officer pro tempore. In 1866 the Legis 
lature elected him to fill the vacancy in the United States 
Senate caused by the death of Hon. Solomon Foot. He 
has repeatedly been re-elected to the Senate, where he has 
served long and well. 

On all questions of parliamentary discipline he is an 
authority, and is prompt and decided in his opposition to 
all irregularities. He is powerful in argument, and is 
one of the prominent leaders of the Republican side of 
the Senate. 

(67«) 



I 



/"■ 



I 






^m^ 



i**^ 
Z^ 






GEOKGE F. EDMUNDS. 579 

We submit some remarks by Mr. Edmunds upon the 
Mormon question. Mr. Edmunds said: 

"I wish to say, in reply to the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts, that Section 7 of this bill is proposed without 
regard to what his opinions or mine may be on the pro- 
priety of extending the suffrage to women ; and, so far as 
I am concerned, whenever the women of the United States, 
or of any one of the States, a majority of them, desire to 
have the suffrage, they will get my vote to have it, either 
in the State of Vermont or wherever else I may be located. 
I think it depends, as it ought to depend, upon the gen- 
eral sense that our wives and sisters and sweethearts have 
of what their political duty is, and how they can best fill 
up their duty toward society ; and when they come to the 
opinion that society will get on better, and that they will 
get on better, by entering into the political field, instead 
of confining themselves to the field in which they are now 
employed, they will have my aid in obtaining that result. 

" Now, I do not think this provision violates any prin- 
ciple such as the Senator from Massachusetts seems to 
suppose. The women of Utah have not now the lawful 
right of suffrage in the sense of a final and complete law, 
for the suffrage law of Utah, like every other law of Utah, 
by the very organic act that creates it, only continues to 
exist until Congress choose to say no. The Territorial 
laws of Utah are passed subject to the disapproval of Con- 
gress. This is one of these laws. Therefore, we are not 
invading any vested right, if you call a political right a 
vested one, in resorting to this legislation. Of course, that 
is quite a different question from the intrinsic propriety; 
but as it regards the violation of any principle in respect 



580 OUR GREAT MEN. 

to taking away an existing right, we do not violate the 
principle at all, because we could take away the whole 
government of the Territory ; and, as to every Territorial 
law, it is expressly provided in the organic act that it shall 
hold until disapproved by Congress. Now, it is proposed 
that Congress shall disapprove of this Territorial law. 
The ground upon which it goes, as a matter of propriety, 
aside from the principle I have stated, is simj)ly this : It 
is set forth in very few words, but I believe very truly, 
in the memorial which was presented to Congress in 1883, 
on the subject of Mormonism, as it is called, in Utah — the 
union of church and state, the absolute autocratic hierarchy 
that controls the whole aifairs of that Territory as distin- 
guished entirely from anybody's religious belief.' In the 
course of this memorial, which was sent up to us by the 
Territorial central committee of the liberal party of Utah, 
representing all the opponents of this system that exists 
there — I am not now speaking about religious beliefs, but 
the practical system — on this topic they say this, speaking 
of this hierarchy : 

"'It confers on woman the suffrage, and then forces 
her to use it under the lash of its priesthood to perpetuate 
their power and her own degradation.' 

" It is to relieve the Mormon woman of Utah from the 
slavehood of being obliged to exercise a political function 
which is to keep her in a state of degradation, it is to 
diminish the voting power of this hierarchy ; and, so far 
as I know and have heard — and I may say with modesty 
that I know a good deal and have heard a great deal more 
concerning the state of things in Utah — there has been 
no instance in which any anti-polygamy woman in Utah 



GEOEGE F. EDMUNDS. 581 

has raised her voice against this provision, which has now 
been j^roposed, for nearly two years. I believe it is safe 
to say, therefore, that what are called the Gentile women 
in Utah, and that part of the Mormon women who do not 
believe in polygamy and do not practice it, are willing 
and desirous that Congress should assist in reducing the 
voting power of this hierarchy by depriving all the women 
in that Territory of the right to vote for the time being, 
until yve can get society restored to its proper and normal 
condition ; and then, if the people of Utah desire to have 
women vote, certainly they will not receive any opposition 
from me. 

"Mr. President, my friend from Massachusetts in- 
quires why I do not come out frankly and say that I 
want to deprive a Mormon of the right of voting because 
he believes in certain things that I believe to be criminal. 
I do come out frankly and say that I am not in favor of 
anything of the kind. This bill and the bill that pre- 
ceded it, and other bills that very likely will follow this 
until the practice of polygamy is extirpated, and it is 
admitted to be a dead and gone thing, are not based upon 
the idea of in any manner interfering with the opinions 
or beliefs of anybody. This bill deals with the conduct 
and states of fact, not opinions, faiths or beliefs ; and, as 
to woman's suffrage, it deals not with opinions of priests 
or people in the sense in which that term is usually 
understood. 

"The situation there is unique. These plural wives 
and the persons under the control of that hierarchy are 
under an entirelv different influence and control from that 
which affects the females or the males in the Roman 



■'y. 
-^^ 



582 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Catholic Church, or in the Episcopal Church, or in the 
Methodist Church, or in any other church. It comes 
nearer to a state of serfdom, as these gentlemen, from 
every one of the counties in Utah, composing this central 
committee of the whole body of the people there opposed 
to polygamy, including Mormons among those who are 
opposed to it, state; and, therefore, because the case is 
unique, we deal with the fact, and we will try to get the 
political power into the hands of those who are opposed 
to the practice of polygamy by diminishing the voting 
powers of that hierarchy. That is all there is to it, and 
it is entirely different from the nature of a vested right of 
property. My friend says that under the laws of Utah a 
property right acquired under a statute of that Territory 
which had not been a2:>i)roved by Congress would be just 
as much the subject of being destroyed by an annulment 
by Congress of that Territorial act. I quite disagree 
with my learned friend. A property right acquired under 
a statute has then gone beyond the reach of that statute, 
and has separated itself from it. A political right or 
a civil right which depends upon conventional arrange- 
ments is a continuing one. We do not propose to annul 
the voting that the women of Utah have done hitherto. 
We only propose to say that for the time being they shall 
not vote any more. It does not disturb any vested right, 
unless it is a vested right in a Territory to vote according 
to the Territorial law when Congress has not yet approved 
that law, but now proposes to disapprove it." 

Following are a few remarks by Mr. Edmunds on the 
education bill: 

"Mr. President, the Senator from Massachusetts, in 



GEORGE F. EDMUNDS. 583 

opposing the idea of equality in this distribution between 
the colored and white children in States where the State 
law makes a discrimination as it regards the methods and 
places of education, says that if you have a family, which 
is his case, of a father and mother and seven children, it 
is no part of our mission in giving some money to help 
them keep from starving to inquire into the respective 
conditions of the children of that family, and we must 
assume that the father and mother will treat all the 
children alike. That is very fair and very right; but 
when the father and mother come to us for this donation 
and say to us, 'We have a law in our family which says 
that out of our seven children four of them, who are 
colored (and three of them are white), shall be fed in 
a separate room and shall sleep in separate beds and live 
in a separate house,' then I think it would be fair for the 
giver of all good and perfect gifts out of the Treasury to 
say, ' If you have got a law of that kind in your family, 
as we want to help all your children, we will provide that 
this bread and butter and beef, etc., to the extent of 
twenty-five per cent, that is necessary, shall be divided 
according to your law of separation of your family; and 
that the four colored children of yours, who live in a 
separate house and sleep in a separate bed and are 
taught in a separate school, shall have the four-sevenths 
of this money that we give, and your white children 
shall have the three-sevenths.' 

"That is the argument, and that is my answer to it; 
and that is exactly this case. The Congress of the United 
States does not propose, at least so far as I am con- 
cerned, to create any distinctions between races; but in 



584 OUR GREAT MEN. 

making this donation of money it proposes to recognize 
distinctions and separations that the respective States 
have chosen in their own wisdom to make. I make no 
quarrel with that distinction. I am inclined to believe, 
differing from the Senator from Massachusetts, that 
under existing conditions of affairs it is better for the 
children of both races and for the ultimate good of those 
respective States that they should at present be edu- 
cated separately. I think it is better for them all, as it 
strikes me. 

"Therefore, the proposition of the Senator from Iowa, 
instead of creating distinctions, assumes and takes up the 
very distinction that the laws of these States make them- 
selves, and creates no new one. It says simply that 
wherever that rule of separation and inclusion and 
exclusion exists, there and then, and so far and no 
farther, shall the application of this money be made to 
the two respective classes in proportion to the numbers 
of those classes and the numbers of those schools. Is 
that interfering with the rights of the States? Is that 
making race distinctions, or color distinctions, or any 
other distinctions? It takes the case as it finds it. It 
applies this gift in exactly the way the State has chosen 
to apply its own gifts and donations and contributions 
and taxations of public money for the suj^port of these 
schools. Is not that right? That is all there is to it. 

" ISTow, the Senator from Massachusetts has seemed to 
think, differing from his friend from New Hampshire, 
that this bill does not do that thing. But the bill does 
say, in Section 3, that this provision in regard to educa- 
tion, without any discrimination of race and color, shall 



1 



GEORGE F. EDMUNDS. 585 

not be construed to interfere with the separation of the 
races that the States may make in their schools, as 
follows : ' Provided^ That separate schools for white and 
colored children shall not be considered a violation of 
this condition' — the condition being that there shall be 
education out of this fund without distinction of race 
or color. 

" Then the bill provides that it recognizes, and admits 
and submits to, in the giving of this gift, the right of 
each State to do what many of the States have done, to 
institute separate schools for their white and their colored 
children. When such a State makes such a distinction 
by its laws, and it turns out that in that State there are 
three colored children needing education to one white, it 
is not right that this gift, if it is to be devoted to the 
purpose we all say it is, of helping them all alike, should 
be applied in the same proportion, in accordance with the 
State law which makes that distinction, and therefore 
place this bread of life, as it is, of political and moral and 
social life, and I might almost say of spiritual life, on the 
plates and tables of the people Avho need it, according to 
the State separations and institutions that each State has 
made for itself. That is the proposition. 

"Take the State of Vermont for illustration, where, 
to be sure, there is no such thing as separate education 
between the white and colored children. There are very 
few colored people there, but they all go to the schools 
with their little white friends, there being no objection 
anywhere among children that ever I have seen to play- 
ing marbles or playing ball or anything in the streets 
between white and colored ; and therefore, in our State, 



586 OUR GREAT MEN. 

there is no objection to their receiving the same bounties 
and being taught in the same way. I am not criticising 
other States where there are greater numbers of these 
people, if that were to make any difference ; I am saying 
nothing about that. The proposition is not to allow the 
State of Vermont to take this fund upon the theory of 
general illiteracy and then authorize her to give one-half 
of it to one race and one-half of it to the other, when of 
one race there are nine to ten that need it to one in the 
other. 

" If the State of Vermont chooses to say that her white 
and colored children shall be educated separately, and 
when the statistics show that in the State of Vermont 
there are four colored children to one white that are illit- 
erate, or four colored persons on the basis of this bill, 
then apply the money according to that need, in conform- 
ity with the institution of the State itself, in order that 
all may fare alike out of this gift, and not leave it to the 
discretion and temptation of any State to unjustly and 
unduly distribute this money as the political or other 
social bias may be in one State or another, according as 
one race or the other may have the preponderance of 
political power. That is my proposition." 

On an amendment to the education bill Mr. Edmunds 
said: 

" Mr. President, I do not think there is any constitu- 
tional difficulty in this bill. The Constitution of the 
United States gave to Congress the power to impose 
taxes, without any other limitation in the tax clause than 
that of paying the debts and providing for the common 
defense and general welfare of the Union. It left Con- 



GEORGE F. EDMUNDS. 5S7 

gress apparently, therefore, just where the Legislatures 
of all States were left by their Constitutions at that time 
and since, except as there may be in some States special 
qualifications and exceptions about legislative power to 
impose taxes. There never was a tax laid in the United 
States that I remember, passed either by Congress or by 
a State Legislature, that undertook to state the purpose 
for which that tax should be expended. That was left 
to such political discretion as the people who paid the 
tax, acting through their representatives, should think 
fit to exercise. 

"Then there is the other provision, that no money 
shall be drawn from the Treasury except in pursuance 
of an appropriation made by law. There is no other 
limitation, except as you derive it by argument from gen- 
eral considerations. In that clause there is no limitation 
over the power of appropriation. It recognizes the power 
of appropriating money in the Treasury, having provided 
how, without limitation, except for paying debts and pro- 
viding for the general welfare, that money should be got 
into the Treasury. 

"The only security, therefore, that the Constitution 
makers thought fit to impose upon the public treasure 
when it had been gathered together in the Treasury was 
that of the people acting through their immediate repre- 
sentatives and acting through the Senators elected by the 
States, so that the political discretion and action of those 
two bodies should be exerted in drawing money from the 
Treasury. It did not say — no Constitution ever had said 
or could say — that no money should be drawn from the 
Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made 



588 OUR GREAT MEN. 

by law for a sj^ecific 2:>urpose named in some other part 
of the Constitution. It would have been impossible, 
impracticable, unphilosophical and unpatriotic, and so 
they left it in that way. 

"In addition to that we have had a hundred years 
of existence, and among the very earliest acts of the 
earlier Congresses, if practice and precedent amount to 
anything in construing constitutions, and I think they do, 
and in every Congress since, you will find a greater or 
smaller number of bills passed and approved by the 
Presidents appropriating money out of the Treasury in 
one form or another for objects that are not specifically 
named in any of the special clauses of the Constitution, 
and for objects that have no possible relation to any of 
those specific powers of affirmative action imposed upon 
Congress as to what it may do as the expression of the 
public will, carrying on an executive ^performance by 
affirmative and positive force of law, as distinguished 
from 2)aying money out of the Treasury. 

"So, then, without going at large into such a discus- 
sion, it is perfectly plain to my mind, with great respect 
to those who think otherwise, that the constitutional 
power of Congress to devote money in the Treasury to 
whatever extent Congress chooses to do so, to this object 
or any other beneA'olence, foreign or domestic, is entirely 
clear, and I fully agree to what the eloquent Senator 
from Massachusetts []Mr. Hoar] has said as it regards the 
promotion of the general welfare by the universality of 
education as one of the three fundamental elements with- 
out which, in the long run, no government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people, can exist. Agreeing to 



GEORGE F. EDMUNDS. 589 

that, it is unnecessary for me to fortify, as I could not 
by anything I should say, the case as he has so well 
stated it. 

" We then come to the question as to what we ought 
to do. "VVe do find, and all agree as a fact, that in a 
great many of the States of this Union there is an undue 
and excessive proportion of people who are ignorant, and 
of children who are ignorant, and in those States it 
appears to be a fact that at this present time there are 
not sufficient resources available from the taxable prop- 
erty of the inhabitants of those States to provide for this 
emergency. It is, therefore, as it seems to me, a case in 
which the common treasure of all the people may be 
fairly devoted in aid of this great and necessary object, 
for the preservation of real republican government. 

"That being so, we want to do it fairly; we want to 
do it under such safeguards that we shall be sure that the 
money will be devoted and applied to the very uses for 
which it is intended. To do less would be merely to 
waste the treasure of the people and to defeat the very 
ends that we have in view. 

" Now, it must be said with all candor and frankness 
that the previous experience of the United States in 
devoting public treasure, whether of lands or money or 
whatever, to the purposes of education in several of the 
States — I do not say all, because it would not be true — 
has not been fortunate.' I believe it to be true that in 
several of the States the donations that Congress has 
from time to time provided have been diverted from the 
objects to which they were designed, and applied to others 
to which Congress would never have consented if the 



590 OUR GREAT MEN. 

proposition had been in the first place to do that thing 
and in that way. Nobody, therefore, ought to object to 
our taking the utmost care that the purpose we have in 
view shall be accomplished under every safeguard of due 
application and due report that it is possible to devise. 

"When I have looked at the laws of the States in 
which there are large populations of white and colored 
people and white and colored children, of course of the 
people, I have found, diifering from the laws of the States 
with which I am more familiar, that the management and 
adjustment of school operations is confided to a very few 
hands, and that in many of those States — and I dare say 
in all, but I have not looked them through enough to 
satisfy me — it is left to one man or one small board of 
men to determine how many school districts there shall 
be in a county or in a State, and to determine how many 
schools there shall be in each district, and of which 
determination the particular people who live in that par- 
ticular locality have no immediate power of correction or 
improvement. I find in those States that the positive 
and affirmative statute regulation is that the white 
children and the colored children shall not be educated 
in the same school. 

" That being the state of the case applied to this bill, a& 
I understand it, as it now stands, it would be within the 
competence of the school authority in any State to deter- 
mine under the law of that State in a given county how 
many white schools and how many colored schools there 
should be, and in the exercise of that discretion which the 
law imputes to him he is responsible to nobody except to the 
power that in the end may turn him out of office and put 



GEORGE F. EDMUNDS. 591 

somebody else in. In the exercise of that discretion in a 
county where there are ten thousand colored children and 
five thousand white children, he may set up ten white 
schools and two colored schools, and yet on this bill, as it 
now stands, in equality between child and child as child, 
or man and man as man, the law of the State conforms to 
the requisition of the law of the United States; and while 
as between each colored child and each white child that 
is able to get to school there is equality of education, 
the practical outcome is that for the great body of the col- 
ored children no provision of school-houses and school 
districts, convenient and accommodating, established and 
set up, is made, while for the white children all is made 
that the State thinks necessary and can bear ; and it can 
be reversed, of course, just the same. If the colcred 
people of South Carolina, for instance, who are said to be 
in the majority there, should act together, as I sometimes 
have been told that the white race does, and should ha^ e 
their votes counted at the polls, and should elect col 
ored governors and legislators and school superintends 
ents, and the whole autonomy of that State, under this 
bill, as it now stands, it would be within their competence 
to set up ten colored schools to one white school, and 
while in each school there would be equality as between 
each of the children who went to the two, yet taken in 
the mass the colored population of South Carolina would 
be provided for and educated, while the white population 
would not be. 

" I can not agree to a proposition of that kind. I can 
not agree to leave the public money of the United States 
in the power of any State or any State authority which 

36 



592 OUR GREAT MEN. 

can effectuate a discrimination in masses, not trying to 
do it as between individuals, which will work either way 
in the method that I have described. That is the way it 
looks to me. 

*' If, then, this money is first given to these States in 
proportion to illiteracy, without regard to the illiteracy of 
people who can gain any immediate and direct benefit by 
education from it, as the bill now stands, it goes up to one 
hundred years, or whatever the age of everybody may be ; 
the money being given to these States, it ought to be 
appropriated to the education of both races alike by fair 
means, so that the children of both races, as near as we 
can get at it, according to the ages where they could be 
properly taught, should have equal advantages and fair 
play, and not equal advantages and fair play as between 
child and child merely as persons, but equal advantages 
and fair play as it regards the institution of a school sys- 
tem that makes the proper number of districts and sets 
up the proper number of schools according to the neces- 
sities of each race, as the law of the State requires, but 
those necessities are to be separately considered and sep- 
arately treated. That seems to me to be fair. 

"Now, this amendment that I offer proposes that 
thing ; that the money being taken to the State, it ■ shall 
be divided between the white and colored schools, where 
the State makes that distinction, in proportion to the num- 
ber of illiterate people between the ages of ten and twenty- 
one, which is as near as we can get at it by the census. 
There would be a way, as the Commissioner of Education 
has shown in his report, to educe fr-om *-he census the 
school age of each State, but it would not be tha consu-s ; 



GEORGE F. EDMUNDS. 593 

it would be something else, although it might be true, 
and that would be more philosophical. But when I turn 
to the laws of the State of Kentucky in force in the year 
1880 — and this census date is taken for all the States 
alike — I find that Kentucky had in force in that year (I 
believe she has changed it since, but that would not help 
this measure, w^hich is based on the census of 1880) a 
law furnishing two separate ranges of age for school 
children between the white and the colored, the eifect of 
which plainly is to give the white children a much larger 
share of the income of that State for their schools than 
the colored children could get upon the same basis, be- 
cause it makes the school age of the colored children in 
narrower compass than the school age of the white chil- 
dren. As, for instance, it may say — I have forgotten the 
figures, but it illustrates just as well — that the school 
age of white children shall be between five and eighteen, 
and that the school age of the colored children shall be 
between five and twelve ; and the consequence would be, 
if you distribute this upon the theory of the school age 
of the children by the laws of the several States as they 
stood at the time of the census of 1880, the State of Ken- 
tucky would get a larger proportion for its white children 
than it did for its colored children, and the white children 
would get it. That would not do. It is, therefore, nec- 
essary, as it appears to me, to take the census statement, 
which shows us the number of the white and colored per^ 
sons in these States between ten and twenty-one, by com- 
plete and exact tables, as the basis of this division 
between white and colored children. 

"With this amendment, as far as I now understand 



594 OUR GREAT MEN. 

it, I shall most cheerfully and gladly vote for this bill; 
but in the state of the laws in these various States, in 
the state of the power that those laws give, and, as 
shown by the reports, have been executed, the result of 
which is that the number of colored children in propor- 
tion to the poj)ulation in many of these States — I do not 
say all; I have not looked it through — who are able to 
attend school, and get the benefit of whatever the State 
provides for them, is much smaller than of the white 
children ; and it is smaller because it is within the auto- 
cratic power of the managers of the school system to 
whom the discretion as to the number of districts and the 
number of schools is left ; from the cause that thev estab- 
lish more' white schools in more convenient localities 
than they do colored schools, and under their laws they 
have a right to do it — I mean a legal right; I do not 
mean a moral right — and they do it. Having done it, 
the money of the United States, without this amendment, 
would go to aid and encourage the exercise of that dis- 
crimination wherein they set up their separate arrange- 
ment for white and colored children, these two methods 
of education, two forms of education, and enable them- 
selves to ajDpropriate this money, if they might, in a 
given county, in a given State, almost entirely to the 
whites and not to the colored. In that state of things 
I think this amendment is absolutely necessary." 



Hon. NATHANIEL J. HAMMOND, 

OF GEORGIA. 




ATHANIEL J. HAMMOND, of Atlanta, 
the Democratic member of Congress from the 
Fifth Congressional District of Georgia, was 
born in Elbert County, Georgia, December 
26th, 1833. He was given a liberal education, graduating 
at the University of Georgia, in Athens, in 1852. The 
following year he was admitted to the Bar, and has prac- 
ticed law ever since, when not engaged with public duties. 
From 1861 to 1865 he was Solicitor-General, and Reporter 
of the Supreme Court from 1867 to 1872. He then served 
as Attorney-General for five years. He was a prominent 
member of the Constitutional Conventions of the State of 
Georgia of 1865 and 1877. He has been an active mem- 
ber of the United States Congress since the Forty-sixth 
Congress. 

During the session of the Forty-ninth Congress there 
arose quite a discussion on a bill to regulate the manu- 
facture and sale of oleomargarine. Mr. Hammond made 
an able speech on this subject, from which extracts are 
here given: 

" Mr. Chairman, the farmers of this country are much 
more interested in preserving our American system of 

(595) 



596 OUR GREAT MEN. 

government in its purity than in suppressing the manu- 
facture and sale of oleomargarine. 

" This report gives two reasons for the passage of this 
bill — one that Congress has the power to do it, and the 
other that it ought to do it because oleomargarine pro- 
duces dyspepsia. Neither of these is a good reason for 
this Congress doing anything. Congress has the power 
to do many things which it ought not to do. Congress is 
nobody's doctor. [Laughter.] When the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Scott] was asked to put it upon 
any constitutional basis, he sought to rest it upon the 
'general-welfare' clause of the Constitution. There is 
no such clause in the Constitution as allows Congress to 
do whatever it may think for the general welfare. He 
called selling oleomargarine piracy. Did he rest it upon 
the piracy clause ? 

"There is such a clause, but the making of oleomar- 
garine is not piracy 'on the high seas.' The gentleman 
from Illinois who just took his seat [Mr. Hopkins] says 
that oleomargarine produces Bright's kidney disease, and 
he wishes Congress to become a doctor. Let us look at 
the matter seriously. Just what the Congress can do it 
ought to do to take care of the farmers and everybody 
else, provided it does it honestly and in accordance with 
the Constitution of the country. 

****** 

"Now, I tell every man in this House that can con- 
scientiously say that his vote for this bill is only to raise 
a tax that he may honestly vote for it under the taxing 
power of the Constitution. But if his reason is to help 
one Yankee to fight another Yankee in his industry, and 



NATHANIEL J. HAMMOND. 697 

he votes for this bill, he will have abused the powers of 
the Constitution which he swore to support. The gentle- 
man from Pennsylvania said that the State was powerless, 
and therefore the General Government should act. In 
1883, with a very large establishment in my own city 
making oleomargarine, Georgia passed an act declaring 
that every particle of butterine should be so marked, and 
that every man who carried it into his boarding-house, 
restaurant or hotel for eating should put up a placard 
that 'his house uses oleomargarine' — that he should put 
it on his bills of fare, and publish it in every room, or be 
guilty of a crime. And the manufacture died in Georgia. 
According to the protectionists' logic, j^os^ hoc jpro]ptor hoc, 
the law killed the factory. It can be done everywhere 
where the people desire to kill it. And then you keep 
the constitutional system intact. 

"I have before me, but will not stop to read from 
it in my limited time, Cooley's Constitutional Limita- 
tions. It declares that the States, and the States only, 
may make laws to protect the health and morals of the 
people, or make laws to keep people from drinking liquors 
in the States. The Government of the United States can 
not do it. The Government of the United States can tax 
liquors. But the honorable gentleman from Pennsylva- 
nia was mistaken when he said that those taxes were 
levied on tobacco and liquor because they were supposed 
to be injurious. They are levied because those things are 
classed as the non-necessaries, and by some as luxuries. 
Xo government ever yet taxed" either for the purpose of 
excluding bad things from the stomachs of its people. 

"Any State now may so far interfere with the taxing 



698 OUR GREAT MEN. 

powers of the Federal Government as to declare that no 
gallon of liquor shall be made or sold within that State. 
The Siq^reme Court has so held from ' the license cases ' 
in 5 HowarcVs Reports down; because the State, under 
State police power, has the authority, and the exclusive 
authority. Cooley also declares that the Government of 
the United States has a police power, but that that police 
power is only to enable it to carry out the powers dele- 
gated in the Constitution, those surrendered by the peo- 
ple to that Government and not to the States. Now, if 
what I have said is true, this bill, as a bill to suppress 
the manufacture of oleomargarine, is unconstitutional. 

"Again, it is protection run mad when we say, 'Pro- 
tect my industry against that other fellow's here at home.' 
This bill is not framed to prevent cheating people. The 
■^ery first section protects colored butter. It says ' butter* 
viall include ' butter made with or without coloring mat- 
ter.' You may swindle me as much as you please by 
making white butter look yellow. It is only the thing 
which comes in competition with that colored butter that 
must be excluded, because it is not genuine butter. 

"I have other objections to this bill, which I will 
state in the few minutes I have. It is a bill to popular- 
ize, and therefore perpetuate and extend, the internal 
revenue system. Who else will come here next week 
and say: 'Add a few offices in the Internal Revenue De- 
partment to protect me, who am selling my Pennsylvania 
tobacco against that man who sells Sumatra covered up 
and calls it Pennsylvania; I want you to add on to your 
law that that shall be a crime — cheating in cigars?' 
Another man will say he is selling pure woolen goods, 



JOHN W. DANIEL. 599 

but that others put cotton in their goods and tell lies 
about them, and ask for another set of men to watch 
him. And the whole time of the Congress will be taken 
up in trying to catch up with American rascality — a thing 
that is impossible." [Laughter.] 




Hon. JOHN W. DANIEL. 

OF VIRGINIA. 




,^^^?;|OHX ^y. DANIEL is a native of the place 
where he now resides, Lynchburg, Campbell 
County, Virginia. Here he was born Sep- 
tember 5th, 1842. He was educated at 
Lynchburg College and at Harrison's University School. 
In May, 1861, he volunteered in the Confederate Army, 
and served until the close of the war, when he held the 
rank of Major and Adjutant-General, Early's Division, 
of the Army of Northern Virginia. In 1865-66 he 
attended the Law Department of the University of Vir- 
ginia, and has ever since practiced his profession. He is 
the author of two books, Daniel on Attachments and Daniel 
on Negotiahle Instruments. 

In 1869 he was a member of the Virginia House of 
Representatives, and in 1875 and 1879 of the Virginia 
Senate. He was a member of the Electoral College in 
1876, casting his vote for Tilden and Hendricks. He 
resicjned his seat in the State Senate in 1881, when he 



600 OUR GREAT MEN. 

received the nomination for Governor, but was defeated 
in the election. 

He was elected to represent the Sixth Congressional 
District of Virginia in the Forty-ninth Congress, but had 
barely taken his seat when he was elected by the Legisla- 
ture of Virginia to the United States Senate, his term 
commencing with the Fiftieth Congress. 

Mr. Daniel is an able speaker, and always a leader. 
His speech on the tax on oleomargarine was short but 
unique. Mr. Daniel said: 

"The Republican party has jumped the wall of all its 
previous enunciations upon economic questions. But, sir, 
astounded as I am at the nimbleness with which our 
Republican finends jump everything which they have 
hitherto pronounced to be walls of American defense, still 
more am I astounded when I see Democrats on this floor, 
who have pledged themselves to abolish war taxes, and 
who have put uj^on their banner the motto of Thomas 
Jefferson, 'Equal and exact justice for all men,' take a 
wild leap over the walls of the Constitution and through 
the roof, turn a double somersault in the air, land far 
away from every landmark of their creeds, and run ten 
leagues farther than ever the wildest radicalism of Repub- 
licanism gone to seed has ever gone. [Laughter.] Sir, 
there is a new song in the mouth of my Democratic friend 
from Pennsylvania to-day that does not sound much like 
the resolutions which the Legislature of Pennsylvania 
adopted in 1791, when, uttering the free spirit of that 
State, which had not yet died out after the Revolution, 
they protested against the ingrafting into America of the 
excise system. It will ever remain one of the proudest 



JOHN W. DANIEL. 601 

features of the first administration of Thomas Jefferson 
that, in conjunction with Albert Gallatin, he led the way 
io get rid of that system. 

"And, sir, it seems to be indicated upon this floor 
that under the first administration of Grover Cleveland, 
predestined, as was hoped by a great many of the Amer- 
ican people, to resume the mantle which had so long 
been laid aside, that the champions and leaders of the 
Democracy have come to stand here and preach a doc- 
trine which will raise every powerful hand against every 
weak one. Disguise it as you will, salt it with rhetoric 
as you will, paint it with the extract of colored butter as 
you will, perfume it with clover blossoms as you will, 
and sing the song of the milkmaid about it as you will, 
the substantial fact remains that in this bill is the doc- 
trine that Congress may create monopoly, and may help 
monopoly to crush out and destroy every wholesome 
industry that comes 'between the wind and its nobility.' 

"Murder has its rights; arson has its rights; every 
crime in the decalogue has its rights, when represented in 
the criminal, to have its fair hearing in a court of justice 
before it is condemned. But, sir, according to the doc- 
trines that have been enunciated upon this floor and 
embodied in this bill— not to protect the citizen against 
fraud, not to ear-mark that which may be noxious or 
counterfeit — we are called on to authorize one industry 
to use the vast powers of sixty millions of people abso- 
lutely to destroy and crush out another industry which 
has no jury to try it, no charge to defend against, but 
must be condemned without a hearing in the House 
which should be the house of its friends." 



Hon. JAMES H. BERRY, 



OF ARKANSAS. 




IaMES H. berry was elected in 1884 as 
a Democrat to succeed Hon. A. H. Garland, 
Democrat, in the United States Senate, and 
appointed Attorney-General, taking his seat 
March 25th, 1885. The home of the Senator is in Ben- 
tonville, Arkansas. 

He is a native of Alabama, where he was born in 
Jackson County, May 15th, 1841. His parents removed 
Jo Arkansas when he was but seven years of age. He 
was educated in a private school at Berryville, Arkansas ; 
then, studying law, he was admitted to j)ractice in 1866. 
In 1861 he entered the Confederate Army as Second 
Lieutenant, Sixteenth Arkansas Infantry. At the battle 
of Corinth, Mississippi, October 4th, 1862, he was 
wounded in the leg so severely that amputation became 
necessary. 

He was elected to the Legislature of Arkansas in 
1866, and since that time has been in public service con- 
tinuously. He was re-elected to the State Legislature in 
1872, and was elected Speaker of the House at the ex- 
traordinary session of 1874. In 1876 he was President 
of the Democratic State Convention ; in 1878 was elected 

(602) 



JAMES H. BERRY. 603 

Judge of the Circuit Court, and in 1882 was elected Gov- 
ernor of Arkansas. 

Following are some remarks by Mr. Berry on the 
Arkansas Hot Springs: 

'' By an act of Congress, approved in December, 1878, 
the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to lease to 
the owners certain bath-houses located upon the perma- 
nent reservation at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and also to 
lease bath-house sites for a period of five years. The 
same act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to lease 
the Arlington Hotel to the proprietors for a period of ten 
years. The leases made under this act, so far as they 
relate to the bath-houses, expired in December, 1883. 
The Secretary of the Interior at that time, the present 
Senator from Colorado [Mr. Teller], decided that he had 
no power to renew those leases. He, however, permitted 
the parties who held under the former leases to retain 
possession as tenants at will upon the same terms as those 
that were provided for in the former leases. In October, 
1885, the Attorney-General gave an opinion that the Sec- 
retary of the Interior did have the power under the act 
of 1878 to renew these leases. This opinion, however, 
did not commit the Attorney-General to the policy of 

renewal. 

*«**«♦« 

"I shall not attempt, Mr. President, at this time to 
state at any length the reasons why I think that the 
whole system should be changed of controlling the reser- 
vation and disposing of the hot waters at Hot Springs. 
I will state, however, that under the present system it 
would be utterly impossible to ever improve and beautify 



604 OUK GREAT MEJ^. 

that reservation in order to make it a desirable resort for 
the invalids and visitors who may go to that watering- 
place. I believe that so long as those bath-houses remain 
iq^on that reservation, and are occupied by those in 
charge of them, with their families, it is utterly impossi- 
ble to keep the place in that sanitary condition necessary 
for the health and comfort of the people. To-day that 
reservation is made a general dumping-ground for all 
those articles which good taste requires should be kept 
from public view. 

"Another reason why I am opposed to the renewal of 
these leases is this : Under the present lease system 
there are a few individuals, the owners of the Arling- 
ton Hotel, the owners of those bath-houses, who have a 
complete monopoly over the hot water that is used and 
flows from the springs. In addition to that, under the 
l^resent system, more than one-half, some say four-fifths, 
of that hot water escapes into the channel of the creek 
and is forever lost. I was going to remark, however, 
that so complete is this monopoly that Captain Jacobs, 
of the United States Army, who had in charge the 
building of the Army and Navy hospital there, was com- 
pelled last summer to buy water for the United States 
Government for the construction of that building. I say, 
while this hot water is allowed to escape, not one of the 
citizens residing in the southern part of the city of Hot 
Springs, the most populous part of that city, is enabled 
to obtain a bath-house or a single gallon of hot water. 

"In addition to these reasons, Mr. President, the indi- 
viduals who own these bath-house leases and this Arling- 
ton Hotel are not liable to pay any taxes for that prop- 



MATT W. EANSOM. (305 

erty. They are practically the owners. They pay the 
Government a mere nominal rent. The Arlington Hotel 
cost perhaps |60,000; the bath-houses cost perhaps 
$100,000 each, or more ; and the owners of this property 
are entitled to the benefit of the free schools, and they 
are entitled to protection from the State and municipal 
authorities, and yet upon this property they pay not one 
dollar of tax. So long as this monopoly is continued, so 
long will there be strife and contention at the Hot 
Springs; and so long as strife and contention continue 
there, so long will visitors and invalids be deterred from 
seeking that greatest health resort on the American 
continent." 

Hon. matt w. ransom, 

OF NORTH CAROLINA. 




ATT W. RANSOM, of JN'orthampton County, 
North Carolina, was born in Warren County, 
of that State, in 1826. He received a thor- 
ough academic education, and in 1847 grad- 
uated from the University of North Carolina. He was 
admitted to the Bar in 1847. In 1852 he was elected 
Attorney-General of North Carolina, but resigned some 
three years later. He was elected to the State Legisla- 
ture for the sessions of 1858, '59 and '60. In 1861 he was 
Peace Commissioner to the Confederate Congress which 



606 OUE GREAT MEN. 

convened in Montgomery, Alabama. He entered the 
Confederate Army, and served as Lieutenant-Colonel, 
Colonel, Brigadier-General and Major-General. He was 
with Lee at the surrender at Appomattox. He was 
elected to the United States Senate in 1872 as a Demo- 
crat, and has been an efficient member of that body of 
legislators ever since. 

In his tribute to the memory of Thomas A. Hendricks 
he said: 

"The whole truth is, sir, that he was the earnest, 
faithful, devoted champion and defender of the people's 
rights. The sincerity of his devotion was the charm of 
his success. He was prudent, sagacious, laborious, wise. 
He consulted the people's interest just as he would have 
consulted his own interest. He never undertook to mis- 
lead, to deceive or to inflame them. He never trifled 
with their liberties, their property or their honor. He 
never attempted to dazzle them with false and glittering 
hopes, or to madden their prejudices and precipitate them 
into desperate perils. He was a brave, cautious, vigilant 
pilot, never departing from his chart or neglecting his 
compass. His j^ositions were thoughtfully taken, securely 
fortified and boldly defended. He was never surprised 
or deluded. He was misled by no false lights. He was 
so thoroughly prepared and equipped by labor, study and 
attainment that he was always ready for and equal to 
the occasion. He was a sentinel who never left the post 
of duty. 

" He was not like noble Hector, towering over all the 
Trojans, but betrayed by proud hopes into fatal indiscre- 
tion. He was not like Achilles, superior alike to Greeks 



MATT W. RANSOM. 607 

and Trojans, but cursed with passions stronger than him- 
self, and driven by mad revenge from the field of honor 
and duty to his sullen tents. But he was like Diomede 
and Ulysses, those pillars of the cause of Greece, ever' 
sagacious, faithful and prepared. Like them, he bore 
reverses with dignity and composure, and was equally 
modest and reserved in victory. Like them, he was 
'equal to either fortune.' He loved law and order and 
abhorred chaos. Like Socrates, he obeyed if he did not 
respect the law, and, like that greatest of Athenian 
patriots, would, with his last breath, have sacrificed to 
the law as to the majesty of his country, even if it de- 
stroyed himself. He was never eccentric or meteoric or 
convulsive ; and though he never shone with the magni- 
tude and intense splendor of Aldebaran, yet he constantly 
exhibited the virtue and energy of the paler and serener 
star whose truth never varies. If he was not a Moses, 
leading his people from Egyptian darkness through the 
wilderness, striking water from the rock and invoking 
bread from the skies, he was the ever faithful Joshua, 
'strong and very courageous, observing all the law as it 
was commanded unto him, and turning not from it to 
the right or to the left, and prospering wheresoever he 
went.' 

"He did not stand among men like some majestic 
mountain, with its proud head in the clouds wrapt in 
snow, an object of wonder and astonishment to all who 
beheld it ; but his life resembled the beautiful plain be- 
neath, studded with cities, villages and happy homes, 
refreshed by cooling streams, abounding in fruitful fields, 
and bearing on its bosom the comforts and the blessings 

87 



608 



OUK GBEAT MEN. 



of men. He was always practical, useful and efficient. 
He seems to me to have taken color and character from 
that great line of English statesmen who for eight hun- 
dred years have steadily maintained and advanced the 
growth of liberty and law, and wisely avoided the con- 
vulsions and upheavals and collapses of the neighboring 
nations. His life and character were complete and 
rounded as a circle, and resembled the writings of Addi- 
son, of which it may be truly said that they are so simple, 
so pure, so strong, so full of grace, and so free from gross- 
ness, so clear with light, and so consistent with reason, 
that nothing can be added to them without marring their 
beauty, and nothing can be detracted from them without 
impairing their force." 



■^^^^ 



Hon. JAMES B. EUSTIS, 

OF LOUISIANA. 




AMES B. EUSTIS, of New Orleans, is a 

native of the "Crescent City." He was 
born August 27th, 1834. He received a 
collegiate education, and attended Harvard 
Law School in 1853 and 1854. In 1856 he was admitted 
to the Bar, and commenced practicing at New Orleans. 

At the commencement of the civil war he entered the 
Confederate service as Judge-Advocate on the staff of 
General Magruder. He served in that capacity for one 



JAMES B. EUSTIS. 609 

year, and was then transferred to the staff of General 
Johnston, with whom he served until the surrender. 

After the war he again entered upon the practice of 
his profession at New Orleans. He was a member of 
the committee sent to Washington to consult with Pres- 
ident Johnson on Louisiana aifairs. In 1872 he was a 
member of the Louisiana House of Kepresentatives, and 
in 1874 he was elected a member of the State Senate for 
four years. 

From December 10th, 1877, to March 3d, 1879, he 
was a member of the United States Senate ; and he was 
Professor of Civil Law in the University of Louisiana 
when he was elected to the United States Senate in 1884. 

He was elected as a Democrat, and took his seat 
March 4th, 1885. 

In his remarks on the question of silver deposits Mr. 

Eustis said: 

" Mr. President, it is not my purpose or intention to 
do any injustice to any official of the Government. I 
am very frank to state that the Assistant Treasurer at 
New Orleans places his denial to receive this silver dollar 
so shipped upon two grounds: first, that the sub-treasury 
should not be made an intermediary between banks; 
and, second, that he has not clerical force sufficient to 
handle the amount of silver which might be brought in 

for deposit. 

«*♦*** 

"What I say is that it has been the custom for banks 

in the interior to ship silver dollars to the sub-treasury, 

the money being received subject to count, and receipts 

being issued to the correspondents in New Orleans; and 



610 OUR GREAT MEN. 

that custom has been suddenly changed and abandoned, 
and this cashier says in this letter that he has informa- 
tion from the banks which made the shipments that that 
custom still i^revails at the sub-treasury in New York. 
Now, inasmuch as that custom has prevailed, and it is 
not violative of law, and inasmuch as the Government of 
the United States, so far as we know, has never lost a 
single dollar or incurred any greater responsibility by 
reason of that custom, and if that custom does j)revail at 
the sub-treasury in New York, why has it been changed 
with reference to the sub-treasury in the city of New 
Orleans ? 

" It was only on the 2d of January, 1886, so far as I 
know, that any one has ever heard of the Assistant 
Treasurer at New Orleans refusing to recognize this 
mode of doing business, refusing to receive these ship- 
ments of silver dollars, as he did on that day a shipment 
of 125,000 from the Memphis (Tennessee) Bank of Com- 
merce, and the Waco State Bank, of Waco, Texas; and 
it is that point to which I wish to direct the attention 
of the Committee on Finance ; for if that statement 
should be substantiated by the evidence, if it should be 
proved that that custom had prevailed, if it should be 
proved that that custom does yet prevail, with reference 
to the sub-treasuries in New York and other places, then 
I say that that official who has approved of the change 
of that custom in the city of New Orleans exposes him- 
self to very grave suspicions, to say the least, with ref- 
erence to his hostility and his secret warfare against the 
silver dollar. 

"We know that the Treasury of the United States 



JAMES B. EUSTIS. 611 

has great power ; we know that its officials have great 
power ; we know that in many cases, merely by interpre- 
tation and construction of the law, they can practically 
repeal or nullify a law of Congress. We know that by 
evasion and by indirection and by simulation of fultilling 
the requirements of the law, even in reference to this 
financial question, they have the power to impede and 
obstruct and destroy and defeat the purpose of the law 
itself. And while I do not intend to make any accusa- 
tion or charge in advance of the proof, while I am will- 
ing to give this official, the Treasurer of the United 
States, the benefit of the doubt, yet I must say that if 
the evidence should disclose that he has approved this 
official act of the Assistant Treasurer at New Orleans, 
and has not given such instructions to the Assistant 
Treasurers in other cities, then he would expose himself 
to the just charge and accusation that in those Southern 
States which have dealings with the sub-treasury at New 
Orleans the only purpose and the only design was to 
create a prejudice against the silver dollar among the 
people." 




Hon. ISHAM G. HARRIS. 

OF TENNESSEE. 




|SHAM G. HARRIS, of Memphis, is a na- 
tive of Franklin County, Tennessee, where 
he was born in 1818. He was educated at 
Winchester Academy. He studied law, 
and after gaining admission to the Bar, in 1841, he com- 
menced practicing law at Paris, Henry County, Tennessee. 
Mr. Harris is, in every sense of the word, a self-made 
man. His father was a man of very moderate means, 
and, much as he would have liked to do so, could not 
assist young Isham in obtaining his education. But 
as he was a young man of remarkable energy and a 
strong, determined will, he early commenced a career for 
himself, and would allow nothing to stand in his way that 
energy and perseverance could remove. He commenced 
with a clerkship at a very moderate salary, and won his 
way step by step up the ladder of fame. 

In 1847 the counties of Henry, Weakley and Obion 
elected him to the State Legislature. The following year 
he was a candidate for Presidential Elector in the Mnth 
Congressional District of Tennessee, on the Democratic 
ticket. In 1849 he was elected Representative to Con- 
gress from the Mnth Congressional District, and re- 

(612) 







imiM^i e, ML^iiMii 



ISHAM G. HARRIS. C15 

elected in 1851. In 1853 he was renominated by the 
Democratic party, but refusing the nomination he re- 
moved to Memphis, which has since been his home. He 
was a Presidential Elector for the State at large in 1856, 
and in 1857 was elected Governor of Tennessee, re-elected 
in 1859, and again in 1861. Later he volunteered upon 
the staif of General Albert S. Johnston, the Command- 
ing General of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, but 
not until it was evident that the capitol of Tennessee was 
lost, and Governor Harris felt that his duty was with tho 
army. He continued in the service till the close of th« 
war, serving three years. 

In 1867 he returned to the practice of law, at Mem- 
phis, and in March of 1877 he took his seat in the United 
States Senate. Mr. Harris is not what may be termed a 
"noisy" member of the Senate, but his views are gen- 
erally concise and direct. Here are some remarks by 
Mr. Harris on the educational bill : 

"In view of the full and exhaustive discussion of this 
bill, I have no wish to delay the action of the Senate by 
prolonging the debate, and will therefore content myself 
by putting upon record, without argument or elaboration, 
some of the reasons which will control my vote. 

"Believing, as I do, and as I think has been clearly 
shown by the arguments and authorities cited by the Sen- 
ator from Alabama [Mr. Morgan] and the two Senators 
from Texas, that Congress has no power under the Con- 
stitution to levy and collect taxes, and appropriate the 
money so collected to this purely State purpose of main- 
taining a system of common schools, I shall record my 
vote against the passage of the bill. 



616 OUE GKEAT MEN. 

"But if it was free from all constitutional objection I 
should still oppose it, for the reason that the money to be 
appropriated for this purpose, whether taken from the 
treasury of the several States or from the Federal Treas- 
ury, is drawn by taxation from the pockets of the people 
of the several States and Territories. And as the people 
have to pay these $77,000,000, it becomes a matter of 
interest to them to ascertain the method by which it can 
be paid with the least inconvenience and injury to 
themselves. 

" If collected under the direct-tax system of the States, 
every dollar drawn from their earnings would go into the 
Treasury, less the small commission for collection. And 
they would get the benefit of all that they were compelled 
to pay — each citizen having contributed in proportion to 
his wealth and his ability to pay. Not so, however, under 
the Federal system of taxation — about two-thirds of our 
Federal revenues being collected under our tariff laws, in 
the practical operations of which, to get one dollar into the 
Treasury, they are compelled to pay many dollars in the 
way of bounty to the protected home manufacturers, and 
the poorest man often compelled to pay as much as the 
most wealthy. 

"Therefore, on the score of economy, as well as of 
right, I would leave the matter of common-school educa- 
tion to the States, where it properly, legitimately and 
exclusively belongs. 

"I will not consent that the people of Tennessee 
shall be taxed to educate the children of Massachusetts 
or Louisiana ; nor would I consent to tax the people of 
Massachusetts or Louisiana to educate the children of 



ISHAM G. HAKRIS. 617 

Tennessee. Nor do I wish to consult either the repre- 
sentatives or people of other States as to how much the 
people of Tennessee shall be taxed to support their own 
domestic institutions, educational or others. Nor do I 
wish to be consulted or in any manner interfere with the 
administration of the domestic affairs of any State other 
than my own. Nor would I ever consent to see the 
strong hand of Federal power extended into any State 
for the purpose of controlling or in any manner inter- 
fering with its domestic affairs. 

"Each State is the best judge of its own educational 
necessities, and the extent to which it is able to meet 
them, and should be left free to determine for itself, and 
to provide for these necessities in its own way. And 
even though it may not be able to provide for them as 
fully as it may desire, is it for that reason to assume the 
role of mendicant and ask alms at the hands of its more 
fortunate neighbors ? If so, let it begin in the ordinary 
way, and not through the coercive power of the revenue 
laws of the United States. 

" Those of us who oppose this bill can well afford to 
rest the case upon the arguments and authorities already 
referred to. That it will pass the Senate, however, is a 
foregone conclusion. I see in it seventy-seven millions 
of reasons why it will pass." 

Here are a few remarks by Mr. Harris on the postal 
appropriation bill: 

"Mr. President, I find in the Revised Statutes a gen- 
eral law. Section 4007, authorizing the -Postmaster-Gen- 
eral, after advertisement for proposals, to enter into con- 
tracts for the transportation of the mail between the 



018 OUR GREAT MEN. 

United States and any foreign country whenever the 
public interest will thereby be promoted. This section 
is a general authority to contract, after advertising, with- 
out limitation as to time. It may be for a trip, for a 
month, for a year, or for four years or more, but it is a 
broad authority to contract. I find that Section 4009 
provides : 

'"For transporting the mail between the United 
States and any foreign port, or between the ports of the 
United States, touching at a foreign port, the Postmaster- 
General may allow as compensation, if by United States 
steamship, any sum not exceeding the sea and United 
States inland postage ; and if by a foreign steamship or 
by a sailing vessel, any sum not exceeding the sea postage 
on the mails so transported.' 

"This fixes the limits within which the Postmaster- 
General may allow compensation for the transportation of 
these mails. If this amendment shall be agreed to and 
become a law, it affects the general law on the subject by 
limiting the power and authority of the Postmaster-Gen- 
eral to a given class of ships, to a fixed period not less 
than which he shall contract, and to a totally difi*erent 
rule of compensation. 

"If this amendment simply contained an appropria- 
tion for carrying the mails named in it, then the Post- 
master-General, under this general law as found in the 
Revised Statutes, could advertise for proposals, and 
under the limitations of the Revised Statutes could enter 
into contracts for carrying these mails; but this amend- 
ment goes much further than a simple matter of appro- 
priation for the carrying of the mails. It establishes a 



ISHAM a. HARRIS. 619 

new rule as to compensation, and fixes limitations upon 

the power of the Postmaster-General that do not exist 

under the general law. Therefore, I raise the question 

of order that this amendment is general legislation upon 

a general appropriation bill ; and the first two lines of 

Clause 3 of Rule 16 provide that ' No amendment which 

proposes general legislation shall be received to any 

general appropriation bill.' I raise that question of order. 
• «♦««« 

"First, it will not be denied that this is a general 
appropriation bill; the second and only remaining ques- 
tion for the Chair to determine is, Is this general legisla- 
tion? If the Chair will scrutinize the law as it is laid 
down in the Revised Statutes, and scrutinize this amend- 
ment, the Chair is bound to perceive that it does limit 
and change the extent of the powers of the Postmaster- 
General as now prescribed under the Revised Statutes, 
and establishes a totally difi'erent rule in respect to the 
amount of compensation. It modifies, it changes, the 
general law, and therefore it is unmistakably general 
legislation. 

" My point is precisely this, that under Section 4006 
the Postmaster-General is authorized and has the right 
to make a contract with any vessel, whether American or 
foreign, to carry mails to foreign countries, and that 
contract, if made under the Revised Statutes, may be for 
one trip, for one month, for one year, or for a number of 
years ; but if this amendment is agreed to, then that pro- 
vision of the Revised Statutes is changed, so that the 
Postmaster-General has no authority to make a contract 
for less than five years ; therefore, he would make a con- 



620 OUR GREAT MEN. 

tract which would bind future Congresses, whether within 
or without their discretion — they would be compelled to 
make an appropriation to carry out the contract so made 
or repudiate it. * * * 

" This is changing the general law as to the authority 
of the Postmaster-General to make a contract. Then Sec- 
tion 4009 jDrescribes the maximum limit of compensation 
that may be allowed American steamers or foreign steam- 
ers for carrying our mails to foreign ports. A totally 
different rule of compensation is fixed by this amend- 
ment ; and again the general law is modified, if this shall 
be agreed to and become a law. That this is general leg- 
islation is as clear to my mind as that anything in the 
Revised Statutes is general legislation." 

The following is a, short speech by Mr. Harris on 
the interstate commerce bill : 

*' In order that the Senate may comprehend the pre- 
cise effect of that amendment I will say a single word. 
Under the provisions of the bill as it now stands com- 
mon carriers are j^rohibited from charging more in the 
aggregate for the short than the long haul over the same 
line of road going in the same direction and from the 
same point of departure. To illustrate: From the city 
of Chicago to New York, from the point of departure, 
Chicago, the through rate being to New York say ten 
cents a hundred pounds of grain, all shipments from 
Chicago to any point on that line could not exceed ten 
cents a hundred pounds from Chicago to the point of des- 
tination. But leaving Chicago and taking up freight ten 
miles or fifty miles or five hundred miles away from 
Chicago, on the line to New York, under the provisions 



ISHAM G. HARRIS. 621 

of the bill as it stands, the transportation company would 
have a right to charge as much or thrice as much 
from this midway point to New York as from Chicago to 
New York. 

"By adopting the amendment and striking out this 
language, my understanding is that it will mean, no mat- 
ter whether you make your shipment from Chicago to 
some point in the direction of New York or to New York, 
you shall not charge more in the aggregate for the short 
haul than for the long haul ; that if you make your ship- 
ment from any point between Chicago and New York to 
New York, you shall not charge more for that shorter 
distance than you charge for the transportation over the 
whole line of road. 

"I think that explanation shows precisely what the 

amendment means, and the effect it is intended to have ; 

and believing that effect to be just and desirable, I shall 

vote for the amendment as proposed by the Senator from 

West Virginia. 

« • « « « * 

" Now, I should like to say a word upon that particu- 
lar point with respect to the railroad wars, because they 
induce that condition of carrying freights at less than cost. 
While a railroad company knows that it may carry 
through passengers at any rate, to illustrate, from Chi- 
cago to the city of New York for one dollar, yet when it 
takes up a passenger five or six miles out of Chicago it 
can charge him fifteen, or twenty, or twenty-five dollars, 
to recoup for the loss in carrying through passengers, 
and the same rule applies to freights from Chicago to 
New York. 



622 ©IJR GREAT MEN. 

"If the Senator will consent to strike out this lan- 
guage, and assert by the law that the transportation com- 
pany shall not charge more in the aggregate for the short 
than for the long haul, he will do a great deal in the line 
of preventing these cut-throat railroad wars and freight 
wars that reduce freight rates and passenger rates below 
the cost of transporting freight and passengers. "With 
this language in the bill, that is the exact eifect of it. 
Take Washington City as the initial starting point, and 
you are shipping to the city of New York. Under the 
provisions of the bill as it stands to-day you can not 
charge any more from Washington to Philadelphia than 
you do to New York. You may charge as much. You 
can not charge any more from "Washington to Jersey City 
than you can to New York. But, suppose you want to 
ship from Baltimore to New York. Under the provisions 
of the fourth section as it now stands you may charge 
twice as much — you may charge ten times as much to 
ship exactly the same character and the same quantity 
of freight from the city of Baltimore to New York as 
you charge from the city of "Washington to New York. 

"The short-haul law was a question which engaged 
the attention of the committee for some months. A 
majority of the committee was not willing to go quite so 
far in that direction as I desired to go myself, but the 
extent to which I was willing to go has been reached by 
the adoption of the amendment which was agreed to 
yesterday. 

"When we have provided by law that the common 
carriers shall not charge more for the short haul than for 



THOMAS M. BAYNE. 623 

the long haul, I am satisfied, from the investigation I have 
been able to give the question, that we have gone quite as 
far as we may safely go, from the standpoint of the 
information that we have up to this time. 

"I think the section as it stands is quite safe, and 
quite as far as we ought to go in that direction at this time 
of legislation, giving to the commission the discretionary 
power that the section lodges in the commission as it 
stands." 



Hon. THOMAS M. BAYNE, 

OF PENNSYLVANIA. 




IHOMAS M. BAYNE, of Alleghany, was 
born the 14th of June, 1836, in Alleghany, 
Pennsylvania. He was educated at West- 
minster College. In July, 1862, he entered 
the Union Army as Colonel of the One Hundred and 
Thirty-sixth Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteer Infan- 
try. He took part in the battles of Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsville. In 1865 he resumed his interrupted law 
studies, and was admitted to the Bar in 1866. In 1870 
he was elected District Attorney for Alleghany County, 
and held the position for nearly four years. He was the 
Republican nominee for the Forty-fourth Congress, but 
was defeated by the Democratic candidate. He was 
elected to the Forty-fifth Congress, however, and has been 
returned to each successive Congress. 



624 OUK GREAT MEN. 

In the Forty-ninth Congress quite a discussion arose 
over the number of vetoes by President Cleveland. We 
quote the following remarks from a speech by Mr. Bayne 
at that time : 

"What are the functions of a President in vetoing 
bills? His primary function is to question the constitu- 
tionality of the law. Were any of these S2:)ecial bills 
unconstitutional? Not one of them. He made no sug- 
gestion in any one of these messages that they were 
unconstitutional. Has he the poAver to intervene and 
prevent the enactment of rash or immature legislation ? 
That was an old theory that was discussed when our Con- 
stitution was framed, and when it was believed, having 
patterned our affairs after the old English Government, 
that the king could do no wrong ; that he exercised a sort 
of paternal control and supervision over all the affairs of 
the nation, and did nothing that would not commend 
itself to the public. 

" But that is an antiquated idea, and especially so in 
a great country like this, under our form of government, 
where all the people are educated, and where every man 
knows just about as much as any other man knows. 
Could he attribute to Congress in the formation of these 
pension bills rashness, immaturity, want of consideration, 
partisan purposes, political prejudices, or anything of 
that sort? Not at all. There is no partisanship. A 
large majority of the men who fought against these men 
now applying for pensions vote for these bills. Demo- 
crats and Republicans alike vote for these bills ; and 
there is substantially no opposition to their passage." 



v.\--^ 






Hon. STANLEY MATTHEWS, 

OF OHIO. 




ITANLEY MATTHEWS, Associate Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
early in life chose the profession of law; 
and he commenced the practice of law at 
Cincinnati. He was soon recognized as a man of great 
ability, and as one of the most promising young lawyers 
in the State. In 1861 he entered the United States 
Army. He was commissioned Lieutenant of the Twenty- 
third Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, with which he served 
until the autumn of 1861, when he was chosen Colonel 
of the Fifty-first Regiment of Ohio Infantry. He com- 
manded a brigade at Stone River, Murfreesboro, Chicka- 
mauga and at Lookout Mountain. In 1863 he resigned 
his commission and resumed the practice of law. 

Mr. Matthews supported Horace Greeley for the Pres- 
idency in 1872. Afterward he returned to the Repub- 
lican party, and was a candidate for Congress from his 
district. Later, he was elected United States Senator to 
fill the unexpired term of Mr. Sherman, who had been 
appointed a member of the Cabinet of President Hayes. 
Mr. Matthews served nearly two years in the Senate, 
from which he returned to the practice of law. He was 
appointed Associate Justice by President Garfield in 1881. 



C\ 



Hon. MORRISON R. WAITE, 

OF OHIO. 




ORRISON R. WAITE, Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, is well 
worthy of the position which he holds. He 
was born in Lyme, Connecticut, November 
29th, 1816. He graduated from Yale College in 1837. 
He commenced the study of law at his native home, but 
went West and finished the study' of law, and was 
admitted to the Bar in 1839, in Maumee City, Ohio. 
He entered into partnership with S. M. Young. The 
firm soon afterward removed to Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Waite 
made a very successful lawyer. His great ability, his 
studious habits and his conciliatory manners all con- 
tributed to his popularity. Politically, Mr. Waite was a- 
Whig, until the formation of the Republican party. In 
1819 Mr. Waite was elected to the Ohio Legislature as a 
Whio-. lie was afterward defeated as a candidate for 
the State Constitutional Convention in 1850, and in 1862 
he was defeated as a candidate for Congress. In 1873 
he was elected a Delegate to the State Constitutional 
Convention, and was chosen its President. 

On the 20th of January, 1874, President Grant nom- 
inated him for the Chief Justiceship of the United 

(626) 



JAMES B. WEAVER. 627 

States, and was confirmed by the Senate. Chief Justice 
"Waite took the oath of office March 4th, 1874, and ever 
since that time his rejDutation as Chief Justice has been 
increasing; and he worthily fills the place occupied by 
the great men that have preceded him. 






Hon. JAMES B. WEAVER, 

OF IOWA. 




|aMES B. weaver, of Bloomfield, was 
born the 12th of June, 1833, in Dayton, Ohio. 
He graduated in the Law Department of 
the Ohio University, in Cincinnati, in 1854. 
He is a lawyer, and also a member of the editorial staff 
of the Iowa Tribune, published in Des Moines, Iowa. In 
1866 he was elected District Attorney of the Second 
Judicial District of Iowa, and served four years. Pres- 
ident Johnson appointed him Assessor of Internal Reve- 
nue for the First District of Iowa in 1867, which position 
he held six years. He was a member of the Forty-sixth 
Congress. In 1880 the National party, in a Convention 
at Chicago, nominated Mr. Weaver as their candidate for 
President of the United States, and he received about 
three hundred and fifty thousand votes. He was elected 
to the Forty-ninth Congress by both Nationals and Dem- 
ocrats, both parties having nominated and supported him. 



628 OUE GREAT MEN. 

Some remarks by Mr. Weaver on the labor question, 
from which we quote the following extract, are worthy of 
mention : 

"The remedy must come from a different class of 
legislation. This Congress can in a single week, if they 
so desire, cause the whole IN'ation to shout for joy. We 
can drive darkness, and distrust, and business gloom and 
despair from every hamlet in America. The remedy 
must come from a proper law passed here to regulate 
interstate commerce. Secondly, it must come from a law 
which shall create conditions under which the employer 
can afford to pay the laboring man a reasonable price for 
his toil, and under which a laborer can afford to work for 
the wages which the employer is thus enabled to pay. 
These are the only conditions under which prosperity will 
ever return to this country. Any other expedient is 
simply an attempt to put salve on a cancer. 

"There is no desire on the j^art of the laboring men 
of this country to violate law. Nor is there any desire 
on their part to lead a life of vagabondage. Such insin- 
uations are a libel upon the laboring people of this 
country. 

"I believe there is a desire in the breasts of nine 
hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of them 
to earn their living in the sweat of their faces. But the 
trouble is they can not get the opportunity to work at 
reasonable wages, and thousands of them not at all. 

"The only hope of tranquility in this country, the 
only hope of harmony and peace between employers and 
employe's, is to give this country a sufficient volume of 
currency. Ah ! laugh if you please ; but * he laughs best 



WILLIAM m'kinley, je. 629 

who laughs last.' Divide, if you please, these suffering, 
penniless people, many of whom are working for ninety, 
and I see by the papers as low as fifty -five, cents per day. 
Laugh at them if you have the heart to do it." 



Hon. WILLIAM Mckinley, jr., 

OF OHIO. 




jlLLIAM McKINLEY, Jr., of Canton, was 
born in Niles, Ohio, the 26th of February, 
1844. He entered the United States Army 
early in May, 1861, as a private soldier in 
the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and at the 
close of his services on the field of battle he had won 
the ranks of Captain and Brevet Major. From 1869 to 
1871 he was Prosecuting Attorney of Stark County, 

Ohio. 

He was a member of the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth and 
Forty-seventh Congresses. He received the certificate of 
election to the Forty-eighth Congress, but the House 
gave his opponent the seat. He was re-elected to the 
Forty-ninth Congress as a Republican. We give an 
extract from a speech by Mr. McKinley on taxation : 

"We have witnessed here within the last six days an 
effort on the part of a majority of the leading committee 
of this House to reduce the receipts of this Government 



630 OUR GREAT MEN. 

from customs about $26,000,000 — a proposition coming 
from the Committee of Ways and Means to so adjust the 
tariff as to diminish the annual income of the Govern- 
ment $26,000,000; and now, immediately after the fail- 
ure of that committee to have accorded to it even the 
courtesy of a consideration by the House of that measure 
for the reduction of the revenues, immediately following 
that, we have this proposition from a member of the Com- 
mittee on Rules, himself the Chairman of the Committee 
on Ways and Means of the House which reported that 
tariff measure — we have a proposition from that distin- 
guished gentleman which amounts to a confession that 
we have not, and will not have within the next twelve 
months, revenue enough in the Treasury to meet the hon- 
est and just demands of the soldiers of the Republic. 
What strange inconsistency ! What is the matter ? What 
can account for these contradictory positions within a week? 
"Now, Mr. Speaker, if we have not revenue to meet 
these demands to-day, then why, in the nanie of heaven, 
did you want to reduce revenues $26,000,000 last Thurs- 
day ? What has been done with that surplus since then? 

" If it is necessary that we should resort to an income 
tax in order to give to the soldiers of this country what 
we pledged them they should have when they went forth 
to fight and suffer, then I am in favor of an income tax. 
But it would not seem necessary to resort to any extraor- 
dinary taxation so long as the Ways and Means Commit- 
tee of the House report a surplus of thirty millions in 
the Treasury, which they feel called upon to diminish by 
a revision of the tariff." 



Hon. EZRA B. TAYLOR, 

OF OHIO. 




|ZRA B. TAYLOR, of Warren, was born in 
Nelson, Portage County, Ohio, the 9th of 
July, 1823. His father was a farmer, and 
he lived on the farm, attending the com- 
mon schools of the neighborhood until he was seventeen 
years old ; then for three years he attended select schools 
and academies. In 1843, when twenty years of age, he 
commenced the study of law, and two years later he com- 
menced practicing his profession in Portage County. One 
year later he was elected Prosecuting Attorney ; he was 
nominated for a re-election, but declined. He removed to 
Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, his present home, in 
1861. In 1877 Governor Young appointed him Common 
Pleas Judge of the Ninth Judicial District of Ohio, to fill 
the vacancy caused by the death of Judge Servis. He 
was appointed in the spring, and in October of that year 
he was elected for a full term. He resigned this position 
in September, 1880, when he was nominated as a candi- 
date from the Nineteenth Congressional District for the 
Forty-seventh Congress. He was elected the followmg 
October. Hon. James A. Garfield, having been elected 
President, resigned his seat in the Forty-sixth Congress 

' ° (631) 



632 OUR GREAT MEN. 

on the Stli of November, 1877, and on the 30th of that 
month Mr. Taylor was elected to fill the vacancy. He 
has been re-elected each successive term. In some re- 
marks in the Forty-ninth Congress on a civil appropria- 
tion bill Mr. Taylor said : 

" Mr. Chairman, I had supposed that nothing would 
induce me to express one single sentiment or occupy a 
moment's time in this discussion; but I have heard it 
stated here as a sound principle over and over, without 
aj)parent contradiction, that to the victor belongs the 
spoils, and I challenge and deny that piratical sentiment. 
It was not even the sentiment of the older and better 
Democracy. It was born of corruption ; it begets cor- 
ruption; it is itself corrupt. No citizen of this Union 
has a right to demand an appointment to office because 
he is a Democrat. No citizen of this Union has a right 
to demand an office because he is a Republican. He 
only has a right to demand it because he is an American 
citizen, and because he is honest and competent. There 
is no other test." 




Hon. JAMES D. CAMERON, 

OF PENNSYLVANIA. 




JAMES DONALD CAMEI10:N', or, as he ia 
more commonly known, "Don" Cameron, 
is a member of one of the most noted fam- 
ilies of Pennsylvania. His father, Hon. 
Simon Cameron, began life as a poor man, but, possess- 
ing talent and an abundant amount of energy, he has 
won a place among those who rank highest in his State, 
both as a financier and a statesman. 

James Donald was born in Middleton, Dauphin 
County, Pennsylvania, in 1833. He was educated at 
Princeton College, in New Jersey, where he graduated 
when only nineteen years of age. After leaving college 
lie entered the Middleton Bank, now the National Bank 
of Middleton, as clerk, and by degrees rose until he 
became its President, and still holds that position. From 
1863 to 1874 he was President of the Northern Central 
Railway. He was Secretary of War in President Grant's 
Cabinet from 1876 to 1877, the close of Grant's adminis- 
tration. He was a Delegate to the National Republican 
Convention in Chicago in 1868, and also at Cincinnati in 
1876. He was Chairman of the Republican National 
Committee and Delegate to the Republican National Con- 
vention at Chicago in 1880. 

° (633) 



634 



OUE GREAT MEN. 



When his father, Hon. Simon Cameron, resigned his 
seat in the United States Senate in 1877, "Don" Cam- 
eron was elected to fill the vacancy. He was re-elected in 
1879, and again in 1885. 

In this instance the son quite worthily fills the father's 
cfiair. 



*H-^=^-«* 



Hon. benjamin butterworth. 

OF OHIO. 




IeNJAMIN butterworth, of Cincin- 
nati, was born the 22d of October, 1839, 
in Warren County, Ohio. He is a lawyer 
by profession. In 1873-74 Warren and 
Butler Counties sent him to the State Senate. He was 
a member of the Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh and Forty- 
ninth Congresses, to which he was elected as a Republi- 
can. We quote the following from a speech by Mr. But- 
terworth on labor: 

" Grentlemen, you can not elevate labor. It is beyond 
your reach. God blessed labor in the beginning. We 
may and should do that which tends to ennoble and ele- 
vate the laborer, but we can not elevate labor. God 
blessed that in the beginning, when by His holy ordinance 
He commanded that in the sweat of our faces we should 
eat bread. Labor is not only noble, but ennobling. I 
have no symj^athy with that demagogism which seeks to 



BENJAMIN BUTTERWORTH. 636 

catch votes, not by asking what is best for the hearth- 
stones of this land and those who assemble thereat, but 
what can we do to induce the struggling masses that we 
are devoted to securing their happiness without crossing 
any plan, purpose or inclination they cherish. 

" Mr. Speaker, I submit that this is a nation of labor- 
ers ; that it is not of consequence where or how we labor 
to honorably fill life's mission, but do we live and labor 
worthily and well? We recognize no idlers save the 
gamblers, the loafers, and those who subsist by lawless- 
ness, and they are few. We all get our bread in the 
sweat of our faces, whether our efforts are bestowed in 
one capacity or another. And this creates one great bond 
of sympathy between all our people. I am in favor of 
all those organizations which call together men of kin- 
dred sympathies, who, recognizing the universal brother- 
hood of mankind, and the equal rights of all, seek to do 
that which will lift men up, make them better, and which 
gives them to understand that in this country, to those 
who practice industry, economy and sobriety, the road to 
competence and excellence is open. 

****** 
"Mr. Speaker, the organization of labor was founded 
by the fathers of this Republic. Every child born be- 
neath the flag is a member of that organization, and can 
only forfeit his right to sit in its councils and share the 
blessings its efforts secure by idleness or crime, one or 
both. Any organization, no matter what its name, which 
excludes from its ranks any worthy citizen for any other 
cause must come to grief, or else by its efforts render 
unstable, if it does not overthrow, this Government." 



Hon. orvill h. platt, 

OF COXNECTICUT. 




I^^^^IRYILL H. PLATT, one of the n^f^st popu- 
lar men of Connecticut, was born at AVash- 
ington, Connecticut, July 19tli, 1827. After 
receiving an academic education he studied 
law at Litchfield. He was admitted to the Bar in 1849, 
and immediately commenced practicing at Meriden, 
where he now resides. 

In 1855 and 1856 he was Clerk of the State Senate 
of Connecticut, and in 1857 he was Secretary of State 
of Connecticut. He was a member of the State Senate 
in 1861 and 1862, and a member of the lower house of 
the Legislature in 1864 and 1869, the last year serving 
as Speaker. He was elected to the United States Senate 
as a Republican, and took his seat in March, 1879. He 
has since been re-elected. 

In a speech on the bill for the admission of Wash- 
ington Territory into the Union as a State, Mr. Platt said: 

"Why should Xew England be thought to fear or 
regret the admission of new States? Cast your eye 
along the parallels of latitude which stretch from the 
Atlantic coast to the Pacific shore. Study the character- 
istics of that marvelous civilization which has redeemed 

(636) 



ORVILL H. PLATT. 637 

the land and subjugated the forces of nature along those 
parallels. Take note of the people who along those 
lengthened lines have builded cities, developed agricult- 
ure, penetrated the deep recesses of the earth, created a 
highway, yes, highways, for the nation, established the 
institutions of education and religion, elevated and glori- 
fied mankind ; who are they ? Are they not bone of our 
bone, and flesh of our flesh? The blood of New England 
courses along every artery of national life. Put your 
finger on the pulse of enterprise as it beats in Walla 
Walla, or Seattle, or Tacoma, or Port Townsend, and you 
will feel the heart-throb of New England. Who are 
these men who to-day are asking of the Senate permis- 
sion to enjoy the full privileges of American citizenship 
in the new State of Washington? True, they have 
gathered from many States; they have come even from 
foreign lands, from lands beyond the sea; a new people 
indeed, but how many of them can trace back their 
vigor and force to the ancestral cottage which stood on 
the New England hillside, their patriotism to the village 
green, and their virtue to the New England church? 
The voice which I bring to them to-day from their 
ancestral State is, ' Come in, and welcome.' " 








Hon. HORACE GRAY, 



OF MASSACHUSETTS. 




GRACE GRAY, Associate Justice of the 

Supreme Court of the United States, was 
born in Boston, March 4th, 1828. He 
graduated from Harvard University in 
1845, at the age of seventeen. After graduating he 
traveled extensively in EurojDe. Upon returning he 
took the regular course at the Harvard Law School, 
and continued the study of law in the office of William 
Sohier and John Lowell. He was admitted to the Bar 
February 14th, 1851. From 1857 to 1860 Mr. Gray was 
in partnership with Hon. E. R. Hoar in the practice of 
his profession. 

His first official position was that of Reporter of 
the decisions of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, 
March 3d, 1854. He performed the duties of this office 
with great ability until he resigned, in 1861. Sixteen 
volumes of the standard law-library size constitute 
Gray^s Bejjorts. August 24th, 1864, he was appointed, 
by Governor Andrews, Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Massachusetts. In 1873 he was appointed 
Chief Justice of the same court by Governor Washburn. 
In December, 1881, he was appointed, by President 

(638) 



JOSEPH G. CANNON. 639 

Arthur, and confirmed by the Senate, a Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Gray's 
past record as a lawyer and judge has borne full fruit in 
his record on the Supreme Bench, and proves that the 
appointment was well bestowed. 

Hon. JOSEPH G. GANNON. 

OF ILLINOIS. 




I HE Fifteenth Congressional District of Illi- 
nois is represented in the Congress of the 
United States by Joseph G. Cannon, of Dan- 
ville, who was born in Guilford, North Car- 
olina, May 7th, 1836. He received a good education, and 
supplemented that with the study of law. He was admitted 
to the Bar, and commenced practicing his profession. He 
became the State Attorney of Hlinois in 1861, and served 
till 1868. He was elected to the Forty-third, Forty-fourth, 
Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth 
Congresses, and re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress, as 

a Republican. 

On the deficiency appropriation bill Mr. Cannon said: 

"Mr. Chairman, in reply I have this to say: I am 

for enforcing the law as we have it. The proper way, the 

honest way, is to walk up and provide adequately for the 

public service. When you fail to provide for the service, 



640 OUR GREAT MEN. 

who suffers ? Take it in this matter of witness fees alone. 
You subpoena a man and take him hundreds of miles from 
his home to appear in court as a witness. Being subpoe- 
naed in a criminal case he must go, without reference to 
whether he gets his fees or not. After having left his 
business, after having spent his time, after having spent 
his money for his subsistence, he is informed at the end 
of his service that there is no money to pay him. He 
goes back to his home without his money, and if, per- 
chance, under the spur of necessity, he sells that claim 
against the Government for less than its face, or for any 
other sum, there comes in your statute which prohibits 
such a sale, and the assignee can not get a cent. 

"There are claims here to-day, in this estimate, which 
have been refused to be provided for by the Committee on 
Appropriations because they have been assigned. Now, I 
say that is not an honest enforcement of the law, and I say 
that when we go out of our way to make some cheap clap- 
trap reputation about making small appropriations, and 
oppress the hundreds of poor men in this country who are 
dragged from their homes to testify in cases in United 
States courts, by refusing them the poor pittance which is 
their due, the money being in the Treasury to pay them — 
when we do that, it is an outrage and a fraud upon a class 
of our own citizens who are poorly able to bear it. I did 
not feel, Mr. Chairman, that my mind would be fi'eed 
unless I bore this testimony, and now I have borne it, and 
you can go on in this bill and other bills to follow the 
precedents that you have set heretofore, if you choose." 



Hon. THOMAS M. BROWNE, 

OT INDIANA. 




jHOMAS M. BROWNE, of Winchester, the 
Representative in the Congress of the United 
States from the Sixth Congressional District 
of Indiana, was born at New Paris, Ohio, 
April 19th, 1829. In 1844 he removed to Indiana. He 
studied law at Winchester, and in 1849 was admitted to 
the Bar. In 1855 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney 
for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit of Indiana ; he was re- 
elected in 1857, and again in 1859. In 1861 he was Sec- 
retary of the State Senate, and in 1863 he represented 
Randolph County in that body. 

He helped to organize the Seventh Volunteer Cavalry, 
and was its LieutenantrColonel. He was promoted to 
Colonel, and before the close of the war he won the rank 
of Brevet Brigadier-General. He was appointed United 
States Attorney for the District of Indiana in April, 1869, 
and resigned in August, 1872, to accept the nomination 
for Governor of Indiana. He was defeated by Thomas 
A. Hendricks, the Democratic candidate. 

He has been a member of Congress since the Forty- 
fifth Congress, to which he was elected as a Repubhcan. 
In a speech on labor Mr. Browne said: 

39 (^^'^ 



642 OUR GREAT ME'S. 

"I think it has been settled by the constitutional law- 
yers that this bill is strictly within the constitutional 
power of the legislative branch of the Government. I do 
not, therefore, propose to discuss it. 

"The fifth section provides that the expense of this 
arbitration, including the presence or attendance of wit- 
nesses, shall be paid by the United States. The amend- 
ment that I propose is simply this, that in the event 
either of the parties submitting to the arbitrament refuse 
to abide it, the award shall be reported to the District or 
Circuit Court for the district where it has been made, or 
where the controversy arose, and that with it shall be 
also a statement of the costs and expenses incurred therein, 
and that judgment shall be given by that court against 
the party failing or refusing to abide by the result. And, 
as the fees are paid in all instances out of the Treasury 
of the United States, the amendment provides that the 
sum recovered shall be j)aid into the Treasury. 

"It seems to me this amendment should be adopted. 
It will give some vitality to this measure, and will aiford 
some reason, some controlling influence, that may secure 
the acquiescen^^e of the parties who have submitted to 
the arbitration. In order to give the bill this efficiency, 
or so little as may be g'ven by the proposed amendment, 
I have offered it/' 



Hon. JOHN H. BUCK, 

OF CONNECTICUT. 




OHN H. BUCK, of Hartford, was born the 
^-dl 6tli day of December, 1836, in Glastonbury, 



Connecticut. He received his education at 
the Select School in East Glastonbury, at 
Wilbraham Academy, in Massachusetts, and spent one 
year at Wesleyan University. He studied law, and in 
1862 was admitted to the Bar, when he commenced 2)rac- 
ticing at Hartford. In 1864 he was Assistant Clerk of 
the State House of Representatives ; in 1865 he was Clerk, 
and in 1866 he was Clerk of the Senate. In 1868 he was 
President of the Common Council of the citv of Hartford, 
and was City Attorney in 1871 and 1873. He was Treas- 
urer of the county of Hartford in 1863-81. He was a 
member of the State Senate of Connecticut in 1880-81. 
He was a member of the Forty-seventh Congress, and 
also of the Forty-ninth Congress, to which he was elected 
as a Bepublican. 

On an amendment to the navy appropriation bill in 
the Forty-ninth Congress Mr. Buck said: 

"I hope my colleagues on the committee and my 
friends on the other side will not insist that we shall, in 
this summary way, blot out an institution which seems 



644 OUE GREAT MEN. 

to promise to do so much good. If we destroy this insti- 
tution, why not destroy the torpedo station, which was 
established for a similar purpose in connection with the 
Ordnance Department? Why not take the torpedo sta- 
tion and all other auxiliary institutions of the Navy 
Department, as well as the naval war college, and put 
them in one place at Annapolis? 

" It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that the mere state- 
ment of the case is enough to convince any gentleman 
who will give any attention to the subject that it would 
be most unwise and injudicious for us now, without proper 
consideration or thought, to omit to appropriate for this 
institution, which is calculated to be so useful. I hope 
gentlemen here will not insist upon destroying this insti- 
tution so early in its life. Nothing can be said against 
it. It has been successful up to this time. Nothing can 
be said against the locality where the school is estab- 
lished. It seems to me that if gentlemen will look into 
this matter with any sort of care, they will agree with 
me that it is altogether too early to condemn this school 
before it has had a fair chance to demonstrate its utility. 

" I will say in passing that almost all the officers and 
others connected with the Navy who take advantage of 
this school are men who have been for many years in the 
service. They are not boys or young men, but for the 
most part middle-aged men, who have grown up in the 
service, and desire, from natural taste or inclination, to 
pursue some particular course of study. It is true that 
without any college a great many men having a natural 
taste for a particular branch of study will pursue it 
alone and unaided, and in this way often develop great 



J. C. S. BLACKBURN. 645 

capacity and efficiency. But who does not know that a 
school where such persons may go and have the aid of 
lectures and experiments is of the greatest benefit? I 
hope, therefore, that this amendment will be favorably 
considered by the committee." 

Hon. J. C. S. BLACKBURN, 

OF KENTUCKY. 




loSEPH C. S. BLACKBURIN', of Versailles, 
Kentucky, was born in Woodford County, 
of that State, October 1st, 1838. He re- 
ceived his education at Sayre Institute, 
Frankfort, Kentucky, and at Centre College, Danville, 
Kentucky, graduating at Centre College when only nine- 
teen years of age. He studied law at Lexington, and 
was admitted to practice in 1858, paying close attention 
to his profession till 1861, when he left the quiet round 
of professional duties for the active life on the battle-field. 
Entering the Confederate Army, he served till the close 
of the war. He then resumed the practice of law, and 
in 1871 was elected to the Kentucky Legislature, and 
re-elected in 1873. He was elected a Representative m 
the Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh 
and Forty-eighth Congresses. He was elected to the 
United States Senate as a Democrat, taking his seat 
March 4th, 1885. 



646 OUR GREAT MEN. 

In his remarks on the admission of Washington Ter- 
ritory into the Union Mr. Blackburn said: 

"I simply meant to stand upon this proposition: 
That the bill now pending before the Senate, in my judg- 
ment, should not commit us to a policy that is without 
precedent, and, in my best judgment, without logic to 
support it. If the people of this Territory desire female 
suffrage, it is within their power, within twenty-four 
hours after their admission, if their Legislature be in 
session, to confer that right ; and I will not undertake to 
abridge or deny it. 

" If the people of Washington Territory, when that 
Territory shall be admitted as a State, confer the right 
of suffrage upon its women, I will not be the man to 
0})en my mouth or utter one word of protest. But I do 
insist that it is not the legitimate business of this Con- 
gress to do that. I do insist that if you pass this bill in 
its present shape it is an abandonment of the j^olicy that 
you have adopted, because in the Territorial organization 
act you did not give the right which this bill now pro- 
poses to confer. It is variant from former legislation; 
it is a clear departure from all precedent and from all 
practice. What the Senator from Louisiana j^i'oposes is 
no infringement of the rights of the people of this new 
State, because we all agree that the very instant the State 
is admitted its power is absolute to determine this ques- 
tion for itself. 

"It took a special act of Congress to confer upon that 
Territorial people the right to do what they did when by 
their Legislature they conferred suffrage upon females. 
It will not take an act of Congress to confer that power 



J. C. S. BLACKBURN. 647 

upon those same people when the Territory is admitted 
as a State. It then holds that right because of its own 
State sovereignty. And the only question submitted 
here, in my judgment, is as to whether you will leave 
the people of the new State of Washington to determine 
this question and confer this right if they please, or 
whether, in the face of the precedents and against all 
reason, the Congress of the United States will undertake 
to confer it. 

"I have no objection to the admission of this new 
Territory into the sisterhood of States, but I can not 
gain my own consent, and I never will agree to vote for 
any bill that looks to the admission of any Territory as 
a State in this Union that commits the Federal Congress 
to a usurpation of power that does not belong to it, and 
deprives to that extent the people of this new-fledged 
State of their own right of sovereignty." 




HON. BYRON M. CUTCHEON, 

OF MICHIGAN. 




|YR0N M. CUTCHEOJN-, of Manistee, is a 
native of Xew Plampshire. He was born 
in Pembroke, Merrimac County, in that 
State, the 11th of May, 1836. He received 
his early education at Pembroke, and continued his 
studies in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to which 23lace he removed 
in 1855. He is an alumnus of the University of Michi- 
gan, where he graduated in 1861. He was then Principal 
of the Ypsilanti High School for one year, at the end of 
which time he entered the Union Army, and served with 
marked distinction till the close of the war. He com- 
menced the study of law in 1865, and in 1866 graduated 
from the Michigan University Law School. In 1867 he 
commenced practicing law in Manistee, where he still 
resides. In 1866 he was elected a member of the Board 
of Control of Railroads of Michigan, and held the posi- 
tion for many years. He was a member of the Electoral 
College in 1868. In 1870 and 1871 he was City Attorney, 
and in 1873 and 1874 he was County Attorney. In 
1875-1883 he was Regent of the Michigan University. 
Prom 1877 to 1883 he was Postmaster at Manistee City. 
He was elected to the Forty-eighth Congress as a Re- 
publican, and was re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress. 

(648) 



BYHON M. CUTCHEON. 649 

In a speech on "Education in the Territory of Alaska" 
Mr. Cutcheon said: 

"We have made an appropriation for the industrial 
school, but not for common-school purposes. * * ♦ 
About one thousand Indian children are already in these 
industrial schools, and making good progress. But 
outside these schools there must be at least four thou- 
sand children, partly native and partly white, for whom 
no educational provision whatever is made. 

"In the organic act of 1884 we provided |25,000 'for 
the education of the children of school age in the Terri- 
tory of Alaska without reference to race,' and the same 
year a further appropriation of |15,000 is made 'for the 
support and education of Indian children of both sexes 
at industrial schools in Alaska.' 

"These Esquimaux, as I have said, are not Indians. 
They are a different race of people, more allied to the 
Asiatic races than they are to the American Indians. 

"Mr. Chairman, Alaska is a part of the United 
States, and its people are in a broad sense a part of the 
American people. It is not an Indian reservation; it is 
a part of our great domain; and, for one, I object to 
leaving any part of our wide territory given over to bar- 
barism without providing for its people common-school 
education, so they may in time come out into the light of 
civilization and be fitted to become citizens of our great 
Republic." 



Hon. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, 

OF PENNSYLVANIA. 




lILLIAM D. KELLEY is a native of Phila- 
delphia, the city which is still his home. 
Here he was born the 12th of April, 1814. 
He received a thorough English education. 
For a time he was reader in a printing office, and then 
was an apprentice in a jewelry establishment. He then 
went to Boston, where he worked as a journeyman jew- 
eler for five years. He returned to Philadelphia and 
studied law. He was admitted to the Bar, and has 
deyoted his time to the practice of his profession and to 
literary pursuits. Twice he has held the office of Prose- 
cuting Attorney for the county and city of Philadelphia; 
and he was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of 
Philadelphia for ten years. In 1860 he was elected a 
Delegate to the National Republican Convention in 
Chicago. He has been a member of the House of Rep- 
resentatives since the Thirty-seventh Congress, to which 
he was elected as a Republican. Mr. Kelley's long term 
of public service is in itself a declaration as to how 
efficient he has proved himself to be in the legislative 
department of the Government. Mr. Kelley is a strong 
protectionist, and holds a commanding place in his party. 

(650) 



WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 651 

The following remarks are from a speech by Mr. 
Kelley on an internal revenue tax : 

" We do not want any additional revenue, and I agree 
with Thomas Jefferson, who earnestl}' and continuously 
protested that internal taxes were an infernal system, and 
incompatible with a republican policy. Thus believing, T. 
have, from the day the war closed, steadily demanded the 
repeal of internal taxes, and I will not now vote to estab- 
lish one. Were I a member of a State Legislature whose 
treasury was empty, I would vote for ar^y law to ascertain 
the purity and regulate the sale of any of these new grades 
of butter. The subject belongs to State Legislatures, and 
not to Congress. If, as the friends of this legislation 
insist, dairy butter and that article can not be distin- 
guished by science or the human sense, the people should 
have access to the cheaper article, and the State should 
see to it that adulteration is prevented; but it is not for 
the General Government to do it. 

" If we enter this field of regulation, where will the 
end come? Can Congress prohibit men of science from 
making new discoveries? Can it prohibit ingenuity from 
making new inventions? Can it deliberately assume, as 
a duty, reHistance W w^^ntal and material prosperity?" 



Hon. frank hiscock, 

OF NEW YORK. 




[RANK HISCOCK, of Syracuse, was born in 
PomjDey, New York, September 6th, 1834. 
He received an academic education; and, 
supplementing that with the study of law, 
he was admitted to the Bar in 1855. He located in Tully, 
Onondaga County, New York, and there commenced the 
practice of his profession. He was District Attorney of 
Onondaga County in 1860-63. In 1867 he was a member 
of the State Constitutional Convention. He was elected 
to the Forty-fifth Congress as a Republican, and has been 
re-elected each successive term. 

The following is from a few remarks by Mr. Hiscock 
on the surj^lus in the Treasury : 

" But let us look a moment into some of the immedi- 
ate effects of this action, assuming that this resolution 
will prevail. I suppose, sir — and I invite the closest 
attention of the House to what I am about to say — I sup- 
jDose that obligations of this country — Government, State 
and municipal, and other corporations — amounting to 
11,250,000,000 at least are held abroad. Where not spe- 
cifically payable in gold, they will be returned to us. The 
foreign capitalist will no longer hold them to take the 

(652) 



FRANK HISCOCK. 653 

chance of the further depreciation of the metal in which 
they are to be paid; and the further sale of securities 
abroad will cease. To illustrate the risk, I invite the 
attention of my friends to the fact that we have coined 
233,723,286 silver dollars, which cost the Government for 
the bullion and its coinage into dollars the sum of only 
1208,687,039— a saving, it has been said, of $25,000,000 
to the Government. But that silver to-day, at its market 
value in the pockets of the people or in the vaults of the 
Treasury, is only worth |1 7 7, 718,000. There has been a 
loss of $56,000,000 upon it. You have forced out, or 
would force out, upon the people a currency which has 
depreciated upon their hands, and is now worth $56,000,- 
000 less than was paid for it. 

"While I am making up the amount of the loss due 
to this legislation, I will call attention to the further fact 
that the interest at four per cent, upon the average sums 
driven into the Treasury by the issue of standard silver 
dollars and the fractional coin amounts to $26,500,000. 
Silver is now worth 44| pence per pound. The silver 
dollar is worth 75.22 cents. If, as seems most likely, 
silver should fall to 40 pence per pound, the value of the 
silver dollar would be 67.82 cents. And one peculiarity 
of the present condition of things is that the lower silver 
goes the greater is the amount which must be purchased; 
and assuming that 40 pence per pound is to be the price, 
we must buy 2,280,889 ounces monthly, which will coin 
nearly 3,000,000 standard dollars. To state this propo- 
sition is to demonstrate the absurdity of the policy. If 
the price should fall to 20 pence per pound, we should 
issue on that basis 6,820,304 silver dollars per month. I 



654 OUR GREAT MEN^. 

make these statements as well to prove that the imme- 
diate effect will be an instant change of values, as the 
return of our securities and the stopping of further sales 
of them abroad." 



-•^^^^^^H^^ 



Hon. bishop W. PERKINS, 

OF KAXSAS. 




|ISH0P W. PERKIXS, who represents the 
Third Congressional District of Kansas in 
the Congress of the United States, was born 
in Rochester, Lorain County, Ohio, the 18th 
of October, 1841. He was educated in the common schools 
and at Knox Academy, in Galesburg, Illinois. He read 
law at Ottawa, Illinois, and in 1867 was admitted to the 
Bar and commenced to practice. He served in the Union 
Army during the late war, serving four years. 

In 1869 he was County Attorney of Labette County. 
In 1870 he was elected Probate Judge of that county, and 
re-elected in 1872. He was appointed Judge of the Elev- 
enth Judicial District of Kansas, and held the office for 
nearly ten years. He is President of the Board of Trustees 
of the Oswego College for Young Ladies, which is located 
in Oswego, the town where he resides. He has been a 
Representative in Congress since the Forty-eighth Con- 
gress, to which he was elected as a Republican. 



BISHOP W. PEEKINS. 655 

We quote the following from a speech by Mr. Perkins 
on the silver question : 

"In our boyhood days we read the story of Atahu- 
alpa, the captured Inca of Peru, and we remember how 
our hearts went out to him in sympathy and our breasts 
choked with indignation as we contemplated the conditions 
of his ransom. Long and loud were the anathemas we 
expressed against his captors as we condemned them to 
proper punishment for their cruelty and their wrong. As 
the condition of his discharge from captivity, he was com- 
pelled to fill a room twenty-two feet long, seventeen feet 
wide and nine feet high with gold. But in this more 
modern day the proposition is made to us that to secure 
our ransom from the captivity of debt we shall, for the 
gratification of our creditors, fill eleven hundred and forty- 
five rooms, twenty-two feet long, seventeen feet wide and 
nine feet high, with glittering gold ; and we see the Pres- 
ident of the United States standing by, clapping his 
hands and contemplating the task with pleasurable emo- 
tion, and asking Congress to see that the burden is imposed 
upon us without unnecessary delay." 




. «/ 



Hon. JAMES T. JOHNSTON, 

or INDIANA. 




i|AMES T. JOHNSTOT^, of Rockville, was 
born January 19th, 1839, in Putnam County, 
Indiana. He received a thorough common- 
school education, and in 1861 commenced 
the study of law, but left his studies to serve his country. 
He enlisted as a private in Company C, Sixth Indiana 
Cavalry, in 1862, and in 1863 was transferred to Company 
A, Eighth Tennessee Cavalry, receiving the commission 
of Second Lieutenant, and served till the forepart of 1864, 
when he was obliged to resign on account of disability. 
He afterward served with other regiments, and in 1865 
was mustered out as Lieutenant and Assistant Quartermas- 
ter of the One Hundred and Forty-ninth Indiana Infantry. 
After the war he resumed his studies, and was admit- 
ted to the Bar in 1866. He was elected Prosecuting 
Attorney, and served for two years. In 1868 Parke 
County sent him to the lower house of the State Legisla- 
ture, and in 1874 he was elected to the State Senate of 
Indiana, and served four years. He was elected as a 
Republican to represent the Eighth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Indiana in the Forty-ninth Congress, and in a 
speech on rank Mr. Johnston said : 

(656) 



JAMES T. JOHNSTON. 657 

" I^ow let me say you are driving on, as I said before, 
to create an aristocracy in this country by force of legis- 
lation. We have had it in years past, and we have it 
now, between ladies at this capital, as to who shall be 
considered the first lady in the land. Because she hap- 
pens to be the wife of this or that Cabinet officer she 
is to outrank every other woman in this land. We not 
only have it here, but we are to have it understood by 
means of the law. It must ultimately become ingrafted 
in the law of the land that the wife of a Senator is bet- 
ter than the wife of an humble Representative, and the 
latter must call first upon the wife of a Senator, and the 
latter can return that call by means of a card, simply 
because she is the wife of a United States Senator. It 
is all going in the line of rank — all going in the line 
there can be such a thing in this country, because in 
position one person outranks another. It is obnoxious 
to the common people of the country and to the spirit of 
our free institutions. It is an imitation of the rank in 
society of the Old World, and is wholly obnoxious to our 
principles of government. It is law only so far as we 
consent to agree to it, but it will ultimately become law 
in this country unless we refuse to recognize it in every 
shape and form." 



40 



Hon. WILLIAM W. RICE, 

OF MASSACHUSETTS. 




ILLIAM W. RICE, of Worcester, was 
born March 7th, 1826, in Deerfield, Massa- 
chusetts. He attended Gorham Academy, 
Maine, where he prepared for college, and 
graduated at Bowdoin College in 1846. He was Pre> 
ceptor in Leicester Academy, Massachusetts, four years. 
He read law at Worcester, was admitted to the Bar and 
has since practiced there. In 1858 he was appointed 
Judge of Insolvency for the county of Worcester. In 
1860 he was Mayor of the city of Worcester, and in 
1869-74 he was District Attorney for the Midland Dis- 
trict of Massachusetts. He was a member of the House 
of Representatives of the Massachusetts Legislature in 
1875. He was elected to the Forty-fifth Congress as a 
Republican, and has been a member ever since. 

Mr. Rice is a very eloquent speaker. We quote a 
few remarks from a speech by him on the Chinese 
question : 

"But some say, 'Let us avoid the treaty.' Says my 
friend from Kentucky, 'Congress can repeal a treaty.' I 
say, yes; it can. The king does no wrong. The king 
can set at naught a contract. The king can avoid pay- 

(658) 



WILLIAM W. RICE. 659 

ment of his just debts to his subjects. Congress can 
repeal a treaty. But when this great Nation has sought 
to make a treaty, when it has been deriving from that 
treaty benefits to itself, and when it has derived from it 
protection to its merchants and its missionaries in China, 
and when there is no necessity, no crying wrong and evil 
arising to our own country from the continuance of the 
treaty, then it does not sound well, coming from the lips 
of a gentleman who is seeking to educate our people in 
lessons of morality and Christian intelligence, to say that 
this Government should repeal that treaty which itself 
sought, and of which it has thus far been the beneficiary. 

"But when the question of a repeal of the treaty 
comes up we will consider that question. In the mean- 
time we have done all that we can. We have done it 
efficiently ; we have done it to the very best advantage ; 
and the only authentic report which comes to us says 
that the law has been operative to an extreme degree — 
to such a degree that California is suff'ering to-day from 
the reduction of this labor element within its borders. 

" Of course, Mr. Chairman, I can not 23roperly discuss 
this question in five or ten minutes. But I desired that 
in addition to the expression from the chairman of our 
committee, who has given this subject most attentive and 
careful consideration, there should be one other voice in 
defense of the unanimous action of that committee, which 
I believe to be justified by the circumstances of the 
case." 



Hon. JULIUS C. BURROWS, 



OF MICHIGAN. 




|ULIUS C. BURROWS, of Kalamazoo, 
was born in ]N"orth East, Erie County, 
Pennsylvania, January 9th, 1837. He 
received an academic education, and after 
the usual preparation he was admitted to the Bar. He 
served in the Union ilrmy, 1862-1864. In 1865 he was 
elected Prosecuting Attorney of Kalamazoo County, and 
served two years. In 1867 he declined the aj^pointment 
of Supervisor of Internal Revenue for the States of 
Michigan and Missouri. He was elected a member of 
the House of Representatives in the Forty-third, Forty- 
sixth and Forty-seventh Congresses. In 1884 he was 
appointed by President Arthur Solicitor of the United 
States Treasury Department, but he declined the office. 
He was a Delegate at large from Michigan to the T^a- 
tional Republican Convention at Chicago in 1884. He 
was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a Repub- 
lican. 

We submit an extract from Mr. Burrows' sjoeech on 
the improvement of the Mississippi River: 

"The committee find that, even where the bank is 
revetted, in flood-time, when the water overflows the bank 

(660) 



JULIUS C. BUREOWS. 661 

and settles on the country beyond, that revetted bank 
will not stand unless they make another improvement, 
to wit : unless they dig a canal below that revetted bank 
to take off the waters that are in the country. If you do 
not do that the pressure of the waters against the bank, 
which is made up of alluvial soil, is so strong that it will 
cave the bank in, and take your revetments down the 
river. So in every case of that kind it is necessary to 
construct canals or channels to save the revetted bank. 

" I repeat, every friend of the Mississippi River — and 
it has no stronger friend than myself— ought to stand by 
this amendment, and open, if need be, the Treasury of 
the United States, and say to this commission : ' Apply 
your genius, your money, all your skill, to these two 
reaches. Plum Point and Lake Providence reaches, these 
two, and see if the plan determined upon by the commis- 
sion is the correct plan ; and if it is, if you narrow the 
channel, and if you protect the banks, and if you improve 
the navigation at these two reaches in the river, and that 
is demonstrated, that will be an end of the discussion 
upon the improvement of the Mississippi River.' 

" The people North and South, and everywhere, will 
pay out with prodigal hand whatever is required for the 
improvement of that stream. But they do protest against 
scattering this work all the way from Cairo to the Gulf, 
at this point and at that point, on a plan which is at least 
an experiment." 



Hon. ALEXANDER M. DOCKERY, 

OF MISSOURI. 




[LEXANDER M. DOCKERY, of Gallatin, 
was born in Livingston County, Missouri, 
the llth of February, 1845. He received an 
academical education, and then studied med- 
icine, graduating at the St. Louis Medical College in the 
spring of 1865. During the winter of 1865-66 he attended 
lectures at Belleview College, I^ew York City, and also at 
Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia. He located 
in Chillicothe, and practiced medicine until early in 1874, 
when he gave up the jjractice of the medical profession 
and removed to Gallatin, Missouri, his present home. 
There he assisted in organizing the Farmers' Exchange 
Bank, and was made its cashier, in which capacity he 
served until elected to Congress. He was one of the 
Curators of the University of Missouri for ten years, and 
during his residence in Chillicothe he was for three years 
President of the Board of Education of Chillicothe. In 
1878 he was elected a member of the City Council of Gal- 
latin, and served five years in that body, and then two 
years as Mayor of Gallatin. He was a member of the 
Forty-eighth Congress, and was re-elected to the Forty- 
ninth Congress as a Democrat. 

(662) 



ALEXANDER M. BOCKERY. 663 

From a speech on the special postal delivery by Mr. 
Dockery we give the following extract : 

" The proposed step would go far to justify a still 
more important enlargement of the system, the extension 
of the privileges of special delivery, within the discretion 
of the Postmaster-General, to all the post-offices in the 
country. Though letters bearing special-delivery stamps 
may be mailed at any post-office, they may be specially 
delivered only when addressed to one of the limited num- 
ber of places embraced within the present list of special- 
delivery offices. At the great mass of the offices the 
people are denied a facility in the receipt of mail matter 
that they are given in dispatching it ; and it so happens 
that the people from whom the privilege of immediate 
delivery is withheld are those who would be likely to 
appreciate it the most highly. 

"At the large offices where the free-delivery system is 
in use the difference in time between delivery by regular 
carrier and by s^^ecial messenger is at most a question of 
a few hours only; while at the smaller towns and in the 
country, where mail matter must be called for, it might 
lie undelivered for days or even weeks. The certainty of 
prompt delivery at such places, in cases of urgency, would 
undoubtedly contribute greatly to the use of the mails." 



Hon. ANDREW J. CALDWELL, 

OF TENNESSEE. 




|]^DREW J. CALDWELL, of Nashville, is 
a native of Montevallo, Alabama. He was 
educated at Washington Institute and 
Franklin College, Tennessee, being an alum- 
nus of Franklin College. He served in the Confederate 
Army till the close of the war. He then studied law, and 
was admitted to the Bar in 1867. In 1870 he was elected 
Attorney-General for the District of Davidson and Ruth- 
erford Counties, Tennessee, and served for eight years. 
He was a member of the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth 
Congresses, to which he was elected as a Democrat. 

The following is an extract from an extensive speech 
by Mr. Caldwell on the Yellow-Fever Commission : 

"The doctors of the world are not deaf, and the tongue 
of Mexico is not dumb. She will proclaim her victory, 
and the world will hear and heed. We do not need a 
commission to act as a messenger to transmit the news ; 
and if we do, we have already in commission men who 
can do for us all that this commission could do. 

" They talk about expeditions to the north pole as prec- 
edents for this. The attempt of ill-judged enthusiasm for 
science to wring from the obdurate and frozen death of the 

(664) 



ANDEEW J. CALDWELL. 665 

arctic circle some answer to the problems of science may 
have been as necessary, as it has been non-productive of 
good results. If the inhabitants, who drink oil, eat tallow 
candles, and are clothed in furs under the lunem boreale, 
had been capable of establishing the corner-stone, the sci- 
entific frontier under the north star, and the world had 
heard of it, it is imagined no commissions would have 
been sent to verify results, and the snows would not have 
drunk the blood of Franklin and his successors in search 
for a north-weat passage, or for the last fraction of a degree 
of the flattening of the earth at the poles, or any curiosity 
in geography, meteorology or astronomy. There is, per- 
haps, a true analogy between an expedition to find 
Symmes' Hole and a commission to hunt up scientific or 
medical ignes-fatui in the tropics. Both may be true, for 
aught we know, and both have sponsors who vouch their 
existence and compurgators who stand with them at the 
bar of public opinion. So, also, as to the precedent to 
appropriate money to test the telegraph. That was a tan- 
gible, practical experiment, vouched for by the probabili- 
ties of physical science. If Morse had had the money 
himself to have built the line between Washington and 
Baltimore, and had transmitted three hundred messages 
over it (as Carmona has), where would have been the 
necessity of appropriating the money for a commission to 
have gone d^ ^ypsying to Baltimore to realize the dream?" 



Hon. GEORGE D. TILLMAN, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 




lEORGE D. TILLMAN, of Clark's Hill, 
was born August 21st, 1826, near Curryton, 
in Edgefield County, South Carolina. He 
attended the Penfield and Greenwood 
schools, of South Carolina, and for a time attended Har- 
vard University, but did not graduate. He studied law, 
and was admitted to the Bar in 1848. Until the war 
broke out he practiced law at Edgefield Court House. 
In 1862 he volunteered in the Confederate Army, and 
served until the close of the war. Since then he has 
been a cotton planter. 

He was elected a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the South Carolina Legislature in 1854, 
and again in 1864. In 1865 he was a member of the 
State Constitutional Convention which was held under 
the reconstruction j^roclamation of President Johnson. 
In 1865 he was elected to the State Senate under the 
constitution then framed. He was a member of the 
Democratic State Executive Committee in 1876. He 
was Democratic candidate for the Forty-fifth Congress 
from the Fifth District of South Carolina, but was 
defeated in the election, though he unsuccessfully con- 

(666) 



JAMES W. REID. 



667 



tested the election of the Republican candidate. He 
was elected to the Forty-sixth Congress, and has since 
then retained his seat in the House of Representatives, 
at each successive term securing almost a unanimous 
re-election. 



— ^'€*^- 



HON. JAMES W. REID, 

OF NORTH CAROLINA. 




AMES WESLEY REID, of Wentworth, 
was "born June 11th, 1849, in Wentworth, 
Rockingham County, North Carolina. He 
graduated from Emory and Henry College 
in 1869. He studied law, and in 1873 he was admitted to 
the Bar. The following year he was elected County 
Treasurer of Rockingham County, which position he 
held for ten years, resigning in 1884. He was elected, 
at a special election in January, 1885, to serve out the 
unexpired term of Hon. A. M. Scales, resigned, in the 
Forty-eighth Congress. He was re-elected to the Forty- 
ninth Congress as a Democrat. 

The following is a short speech by Mr. Reid on the 
Government Printing Office: 

"In reply to the remarks of the gentleman from 
Kentucky as to the abuses creeping into the Grovernment 
offices, I wish to say that, instead of the measure now 
proposed being liable to lead to abuse, we seek to relieve 
the employes of the Government Printing Office from an 



668 OUR GREAT MEN. 

evident injustice and oppression. In that office there are 
employed about eight hundred females and fifteen hun- 
dred males. The work which these employes perform is 
more onerous, the time occupied is longer, the pay is 
smaller, than in other Departments of the Government, 
where the employes are allowed a leave of absence of 
thirty days with pay. This bill, as we propose to 
amend it, provides simply that persons employed 
for one year in the Grovernment Printing Office may, 
under such regulations as the Public Printer shall pre- 
scribe, be entitled to a leave of absence of fifteen days 
with pay. This proj^osition being the first that has been 
introduced in Congress for the relief of this class of 
people who work for wages, and carrying on its face so 
much evident justice and right, we had hope the bill 
would be passed without further debate. I trust that by 
unanimous consent the general debate may terminate, that 
the amendment may be adopted, and the bill passed." 




Hon. JAMES D. RICHARDSON, 



OF TENNESSEE. 




AMES D. RICHARDSON, of Murfreesboro', 
^1 was born in the County of Rutherford, and 

State of Tennessee, the 10th of March, 1843. 

He received his education in the schools of 
the neighborhood and at Franklin College, Tennessee. 
He left college before graduating to enter the Confederate 
Army, where he served nearly four years. After the war 
he studied law, and was admitted to the Bar, and in 
January, 1867, commenced practicing in Murfreesboro'. 
He was elected to the House of Representatives of the 
Legislature of Tennessee, and took his seat in October, 
1871, and served as Speaker of the House, then at the 
early age of twenty-eight. In 1873-1874 he was a mem- 
ber of the State Senate. In 1876 he was a Delegate to the 
National Democratic Convention in St. Louis. He was 
elected Representative from the Fifth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Tennessee to the Forty-ninth Congress. 

The following is a portion of a speech by Mr. Rich- 
ardson upon the subject of claims: 

" The late Senator from Massachusetts, Hon. Charles 
Sumner, speaking of the dealings of this Government 
with her creditors, and these claimants are simple credit- 

(669) 



670 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ors, on one occasion said, 'We have the meanest and 
most dishonest government in the world.' I shall not, 
sir, agree Mr. Sumner was right; on the other hand, I 
think we are the best government the world ever saw. 
But I do say here and now that if an individual, having 
the power to do so, were to treat his creditors as the poor 
claimants in this bill have been treated, and as scores 
and hundreds of similar claimants are now being treated, 
such individual would not only be properly characterized 
as mean but as dishonest also. If States were to deal with 
their creditors in the same way, they would at once have 
the charge made against them that they were guilty of 
repudiation. 

" If the Government, sir, displayed one-half the alac- 
rity to do justice in its dealings with these poor people for 
whom I speak to-day, and whose property it took and 
consumed a quarter of a century ago, that it manifests in 
dealing with its rich bonded creditors in unjustly con- 
verting their demands into gold obligations, and in 
extorting gold or its equivalent from a tax-ridden people 
to increase the fortunes of that class of creditors, there 
would be no just cause for the criticism made by the late 
Senator from Massachusetts! 

" I ask, Mr. Chairman, the prompt and immediate 
consideration and passage of this bill, that the partial 
justice it affords them, so long deferred, may at last be 
meted out without further delay to the claimants men- 
tioned therein." 



Hon. WHARTON J. GREEN, 

OF NORTH CAROLINA. 




HARTON J. GREEN, of Fayetteville, is a 
native of Florida. He was born near St. 
Mark's, in that State, his father having 
recently moved there from North Carolina. 
His mother died when Wharton was only four years old, 
and he was placed with an uncle, and his father entered 
the struggle for the independence of Texas. He was 
soon sent to his grandmother in Warren County, North 
Carolina. He was educated at Greorgetown College, Love- 
joy's Academy (in Raleigh), West Point, and the Univer- 
sity of Virginia. He studied law at the University of 
Virginia and at Cumberland University. After he was 
admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court, 
he gave up law as a profession and engaged in farming. 
He now owns an extensive vineyard. 

He was among the first to enter the Confederate Army 
when the war broke out. He was a Delegate in 1868 to 
the Democratic National Convention in New York, and 
also in 1876 to the Democratic National Convention held 
in St. Louis. He was State Alternate to the National 
Democratic Convention in Cincinnati in 1880. He was 
elected to the Forty-eighth Congress, and re-elected to the 
Forty-ninth Congress. 

(671) 



Hon. BENTON McMILLIN, 

OF TENNESSEE. 




lENTON McMILLIN, of Carthage, is a 
native of Kentucky. He was born in Mon- 
roe County, that State, Sej^tember 11th, 
1845. He received his education at Phylo- 
math Academy, Tennessee, and Kentucky University, in 
Lexington. After due preparation he was admitted to 
the Bar, and in 1871 he commenced practicing law in 
Celina, Tennessee. In 1874 he was elected to the Legis- 
lature of Tennessee. In 1875 the Governor of Tennessee 
commissioned him to treat with Kentucky for the pur- 
chase of territory. He was a member of the Electoral 
College in 1876, casting his vote for Tilden and Hendricks. 
In 1877 the Governor commissioned him Special Judge 
of the Circuit Court. He was elected to the Forty-sixth 
Congress as a Democrat, and has been re-elected to each 
successive Congress from the Fourth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Tennessee. 

In a speech in the House of Representatives during 
the Forty-ninth Congress, on the Illinois and Mississippi 
River Canal, Mr. McMillin said: 

''What is the condition of the Treasury and of the 
country to-day? There are a number of your harbors 

(672) 



BENTON m'millin. 673 

all round this country that can not be entered because of 
the sands that have washed into them from the rivers of 
the continent. The amount that could be appropriated 
for river and harbor and canal purposes is limited ; and 
hence if you increase the number of canals that are to 
share in this appropriation, you to that extent destroy the 
legitimate work and the necessary work of cleaning out 
the harbors by which the country is approached. Are 
gentlemen ready to do it? 

" We have all seen the different appropriation bills for 
the purpose of constructing water-ways come before Con- 
gress, and we have seen one Congress die, and the party 
which went out a majority return a minority, as much 
because of appropriating 118,000,000 for that purpose as 
anything else. I am in favor of legitimate river and 
harbor improvements. I have favored them all along 
the line. I oj^pose this because I do not believe it is 
wise policy to abandon the channels that the Great Archi- 
tect of the universe made, and go out to make channels 
that He did not see fit to make for commerce." 




41 



Hon. ethelbert barksdale, 

OF MISSISSIPPI. 




ITHELBERT BARKSDALE, of Jackson, 
was born in Rutherford County, Tennessee. 
lie removed to Mississippi when quite 
young. In his twenty-first year he adopted 
journalism as a profession. He conducted the official 
journal of Mississippi from 1854 to 1861, and from 1876 
to 1883. During the war he w^as a member of the Con- 
federate Congress. In the National Democratic Conven- 
tions of 1860, 1868, 1872 and 1880 he served on the Plat- 
form Committees. In 1876 he was Chairman of the State 
Electoral College. From 1877 to 1879 he was Chairman 
of the State Executive Committee. He was elected to 
the Forty-eighth Congress as a Democrat, and re-elected 
to the Forty-ninth Congress. 

In a speech on State claims, from which we quote the 
following, Mr. Barksdale said : 

"Mr. Speaker, it has been ascertained and officially 
stated that there are moneys due by the United States to 
certain States which have been withheld in consequence 
of balances alleged to be due from those States to the Gen- 
eral Government for direct taxes under the act of August 
2d, 1861. Mississippi is one of the States to which there 

(674) 



ETHELBERT BARKSDALE. 675 

is acknowledged indebtedness by the United States, and 
she, in common with the rest, is seeking the relief which 
the pending bill will afford. The amount which is shown 
to be due her by the report of First Comptroller Durham 
is $41,453.91. This sum is due the State by virtue of 
acts of Congress passed March 1st, 1817, and September 
4th, 1841, providing that two and five per cent, on the net 
proceeds of lands sold within the State shall be paid to 
the State for internal improvement purposes. 

^^ ^^ ^p *F ^T* ^P" 

"In further support of the position which I have taken 
in favor of the bill to authorize the settlement of these 
claims, and the removal of obstacles which only the weak- 
est quibbling could have suggested, I will cite the able 
and unanswerable reasoning of First Comptroller A. G. 
Porter in his decision upon the case of Georgia, precisely 
analogous to that of Mississippi, which leads up to the 
conclusion that it was his 'dutv to direct that the sum 
appropriated (under the direct tax law) to the State of 
Greorgia shall not be credited as upon a debt owing by 
that State to the United States, but shall be paid at once 
to the State.' (Decision of the First Comptroller, May 
24th, 1879, Executive Document 24, Forty-sixth Congress.) 

"And finally, Mr. Speaker, the United States cre- 
ated the obligation to the State of Mississippi for the 
specific purpose nominated in the bond, and can not 
divert the sums due her wi^out violating its plighted 
faith. It would be far greater honor to moderate its own 
demands than to incur the hazard of trenching upon the 
rights of others. Can this Government, illimitable in its 
resources, and as powerful to maintain its pledges invio- 



e/'G 



OUR GREAT MEN. 



li te as to enforce its authority, afford to plant itself upon 
tlie Rob Roy doctrine — 

"'The shnple plan 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can ' ? " 



"^^^^'^^'^^ 



HON. JOHN J. HEMPHILL, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 




Tf-5-|s^felOHN J. HEMPHILL was born at Chester, 
South Carolina, his present home, the 25th 
of August, 1849. He was educated in the 
schools of Chester, and attended the South 
Carolina University for three years, graduating there in 
1 ^69. He then studied law, and was admitted to practice 
hi 1870. The 1st of January, 1871, he commenced prac- 
t cing law in Chester. He was the Democratic nominee 
f )r the Legislature in 1874, but was defeated. In 1876 
1 e was elected to the State Legislature, and served for 
1 hree consecutive terms. He was a member of the Forty- 
(iighth and Forty-ninth Congresses. 

On the subject of book-making and pool-selling in the 
District of Columbia Mr. Hemphill said : 

"The merits of the bill are so plain they do not need 
any explanation. The object is to prohibit book-making 
and pool-selling upon horse-races and elections or any 
other contest. This law is simply in conformity to the 



JOHN J. HEMPHILL. 677 

laws which prevail in a majority of the States of the 
Union, and it is merely a question whether the people 
who live in the District of Columbia shall be subjected to 
more temptation than the people who live in the States of 
the Union. We here must legislate for this people. We 
are the only body they have to look to for encouragement 
in morality, and we should do for them what the Legisla- 
tures of the States do for the people in those States. 

" We submitted the bill to the District Commission- 
ers, who are in a measure protectors of the public welfare, 
and, in a limited sense, of the morals of this place. 
They approved it unanimously, with the suggestion, how- 
ever, that there should be twice a year, of one week's 
duration each, a time when the jockey club, which has a 
track not far removed from the city, should have the 
privilege of selling pools on horse-races there. 

"The committee, however, thought that if it was to be 
of any benefit at all there should not be any special priv- 
ileges granted to any one particular class or association ; 
and therefore they did not accept the suggestion of the 
commissioners, and reported the bill as it is. 

" They believe the bill will commend itself to the good 
sense of the House, and that morality which distinguishes 
members of Congress they will endeavor to inculcate by 
suitable legislation. I think that the bill has merits and 
should pass, and I do not know that we will ever have a 
better time to do this than in the absence of everybody 
who is supposed to be opposed to it." 



Hon. henry S. van EATON, 

OF MISSISSIPPI. 




lENRY S. VAN EATOX was born in Ham- 
ilton County, Ohio, the 14tli of September, 
1826. When he was six years old his 
parents moved to Jacksonville, Illinois, 
where Henry was educated. He graduated at Illinois 
College in 1848, and then went to Woodville, Mississippi. 
He studied law, and was admitted to the Bar in Missis- 
sippi. He was elected State's Attorney for the Southern 
Mississippi District in 1867, and two years later he was 
elected to the State Legislature. During the war he 
served in the Confederate Army, and when peace was 
restored he again resumed the practice of his profession. 
He was appointed Chancellor of the Tenth Mississippi 
District in 1880. He was elected to the Forty-eighth 
Congress, and re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress, as 
a Democrat. 

The following is an extract from a short speech by Mr. 
Van Eaton on the Kansas land grants : 

"That brings me to one of the remarkable features of 
this bill. It provides, in case certain settlers are on land 
which shall turn out in the readjustment did not belong 
to the railroad company when it sold it to the settler, 

(678) 



HENRY S. VAN EATON. 679 

what shall be done. To my mind it is a most remarkable 
provision. It says: 'We will give you the land, but 
make the railroad company pay the price.' The trouble, 
to my mind, is just this : If the railroad sold that to 
which it had no title, as a matter of course the vendee has 
recourse on the warranty ; but this bill attempts to make 
the railroad resj)onsible to the United States. That is to 
say, if they sold the land and gave no title, they are not 
to account to the purchaser, they are not to account to the 
vendee, but the United States accounts to them or guar- 
antees the title, and then turns upon the road and says : 
' You pay us. You do not pay the man whose title you 
guaranteed, but we will step in and fix that title, and then 
you will pay us.' To my mind, it is a novel proposition 
of law. As a matter of course, if the railroad sold 
without guarantee, the purchasers in that case would be 
helpless." 




Hon. OLIN wellborn, 

OF TEXAS. 




ILIN WELLBORN represents the Sixth 
Congressional District of Texas in the House 
of Representatives of the United States Con- 
gress. His present home is in Dallas, Texas. 
He has been a member of Congress since the Forty-sixth 
Congress, to which he was elected as a Democrat. 

In a speech on the bill for the relief of the Cheyenne 
Indians Mr. Wellborn said: 

" So urgently does the situation of these Indians appeal 
for assistance that the President of the United States 
deemed the matter of sufficient importance in the early 
days of the present session of Congress to make it the 
subject of a special message. Subsequently thereto, the 
Chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs 
received a communication from the Secretary of the Inte- 
rior earnestly asking speedy action and early legislation 
on the subject. 

"In response to these executive calls the House, a few 
days ago, on motion of the gentleman from Minnesota, 
passed the legislation recommended by the President, in 
the form of a joint resolution. The Senate, in its digni- 
fied conservatism, I suppose, or perhaps its superior par- 

(680) 



BARCLAY HENLEY. 681 

liamentary wisdom, has returned the joint resolution to 
the House with an amendment changing the proposed 
legislation from the form of a joint resolution into that of 
a bill ; or, to be more specific, an amendment striking out 
the words 'Be it resolved,' etc., and substituting the words 
'Be it enacted.' Now, sir, while I shall ask the House, 
for reasons to be stated before taking my seat, to concur 
in this amendment of the Senate, yet I do it being fully 
aware of the fact that if the House were to adhere strictly 
to its practice in former years it would reject the amend- 
ment, because I am advised that there is but one instance on 
record where the House has accepted a Senate amendment 
changing a joint resolution into the form of a bill, and that 
in the closing hours of a dying Congress, when contest 
over the matter would be fruitless." 

— *^#^— 

Hon. BARCLAY HENLEY, 

OF CALIFORNIA. 




[aRCLAY HENLEY, of Santa Rosa, who 
represents the First Congressional Dis- 
trict of California in the National House of 
Representatives, was born in Clark County, 
Indiana, March 17th, 1843. He is the son of Thomas J. 
Henley, who was a Representative in Congress from 
Indiana from 1842 to 1849. He went to California in 
1853, and returned to Indiana to attend Hanover College. 



682 OUR GREAT MEN. 

He studied law in San Francisco, and in 1864 was admit- 
ted to the Bar. For a time he was District Attorney o| 
Sonoma County. He was also a member of the State 
Assembly. He was nominated Presidential Elector on the 
Democratic ticket in 1876, and nominated for that posi- 
tion in 1880, and that time elected. 

He has been a member of the National House of Rep- 
resentatives since 1882, when he was elected to the Forty- 
eighth Congress. 

In some remarks on the settlers on lands in Nebraska 
and Kansas Mr. Henley said: 

"Mr. Speaker, I think this Government is big enough 
to do precisely what is right, without regard to legal tech- 
nicalities. When appealed to by the gentleman from 
Illinois, my friend from Georgia seemed to shrink from 
the inequity and injustice of the position he would have 
the House assume with reference to this bill, namely, to 
limit this belief to exactly what a court would award were 
the matter between private individuals. 

"The gentleman from Illinois asked, 'Is this right?' 
repeating the measure of relief insisted upon by my 
friend from Georgia. The gentleman would not answer 
that specifically, but went on to state what was the strict 
letter of the law. But the fact is, sir, the Government 
told these people to go onto the lands, paying a certain 
sum of money, and make their homes thereon. They did 
it under that authority from the Government, and under 
the sanction of repeated decisions of the Land Department, 
which the people of this country have a right to regard 
as sufiiciently reliable to act upon. With this under- 
standing they went to work and made their homes. Some 



BAECLAY HENLEY. 683 

doubtless expended the fruits of years of toil in improving 
what they thought was their own, and to which many of 
them had obtained United States patents, and all had 
paid for in good faith. Then here comes this decision of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, by which it is 
held that these patents that purported to convey title to 
this property by the Government are invalid, and that the 
Government had no title to convey. 

"The position, then, is this: They have made large 
expenditures— all they could afford— thinking and being 
told by the Government that they had title to the land. 
They did not calculate on being called upon to pay an 
additional sum to a railroad company to validate the title 
which they supposed they had from the Government, or 
which had been, therefore, conveyed by the Government; 
and the Public Lands Committee thought it a hardship 
to hold them to the strict letter of the law, and to limit 
the amount of money to be paid them simply to the sum 
paid by them to the Government." 




^j^m 




Hon. FRANCIS M. COCKRELL, 

OF MISSOURI. 




J^^^JRANCIS MAKIOX COCKRELL, of War- 
reiisburg, was born the 1st of October, 1834, 
ill Johnson County, Missouri. He received 
the foundation uf his education in the com- 
mon schools of the neighborhood, and then attended 
Chapel Hill College, Lafayette County, Missouri, where 
he graduated in July, 1853. He then jDrepared for admis- 
sion to the Bar; and since his admission he has been 
engaged in the practice of his profession, never holding 
any public office till he was elected to the United States 
Senate, where he took his seat March 4th, 1875. Mr. 
Cockrell is a strong Democrat. 

In a speech on the Army efficiency Mr. Cockrell said: 
"Suppose we should come in contact with the British 
lion upon the coast of Maine, are not the brave, chival- 
rous militiamen of Maine, the ^^atriotic citizens of that 
State, able and organized to come forth as militia under 
their State officers and repel all the foreign foes that can 
land upon Maine's soil in the next twelve months? 
Remember, Mr. President, neither the regular army nor 
the militia can go upon the waters and meet the enemy 
even in armed vessels. We have had some foreign wars. 

(684) 



FRANCIS M. COCKRELL. 685 

Who did the main fighting ? The militia, the volunteer 
soldiers of the United States. We had the greatest civil 
war the world has ever beheld. When Americans met 
Americans upon the ensanguined field, then came the tug 
of war. It was the volunteer soldiers who fought the war 
and made a character superior to that enjoyed by the 
soldiers of any country on earth to-day. 

"Our great people, isolated as we are, knowing the 
right from the wrong, and daring always to do the right, 
conscious of the purity and justness of all our national 
aspirations, content upon our own public domain, under 
our own vine and fig-tree, coveting nothing which belongs 
to our neighbors, and on terms of peace, commerce and 
honest friendship with all nations, with no national ani- 
mosities or fancied grievances or wrongs to avenge, abso- 
lutely bearing, as a nation, ^charity to all and malice 
toward none,' need no standing army to oppose foreign 
foes or aggressions. There is no possible danger to this 
great country from any foreign nation. The true, noble, 
brave and patriotic people of all our indestructible States, 
composing our indissoluble Union, the people of the 
United States of America, can successfully resist the com- 
bined nations of the earth. There is no need for an 
increase of the Army on account of foreign foes." 



Hon. JOHN R. TUCKER, 

OF VIRGINIA. 




|OHN RANDOLPH TUCKER, of Lexing- 
ton, was born at Winchester, the 24th of 
December, 1823. He was educated at the 
University of Virginia. His profession is 
that of a lawyer. From 1857 to 1865 he was Attorney- 
General of Virginia. He was Professor of Equity and 
Public Law at Lee University, in Lexington. He has 
been a member of the National House of Representatives 
since the Forty-fourth Congress, to which he was elected 
as a Democrat. 

The following is an extract from^a short speech by Mr. 
Tucker on an internal revenue tax: 

"Now, Mr. Chairman, is this a revenue bill or is it 
something else ? I put the question to every man's own 
conscience here, as I put it to my own: Do I vote for 
this bill, if I vote for it at all, for the purpose of raising 
revenue to support the Government ; and if I do not for 
the purpose of raising revenue, but for the purpose of 
raising none, in order to destroy an industry of the coun- 
try, then I ask the question. If I use the taxing power to 
destroy an industry which I may not do directly, what 
right have I, by an evasion of constitutional obligations, 

(686) 



JOHN R. TUCKER. 687 

to attempt to do through the taxing power what I admit I 
can not do by any direct action of the Government ? 

"Do we need the revenue? Why, sir, during the last 
six months of the year the imports of this country have 
been forty millions more than for the corresponding six 
months in the last year, and that would be eighty millions 
increase in one year. At forty per cent, it would raise 
an increased revenue in this country amounting to 
132,000,000. There arc two hundred millions of oleomar- 
garine made in this country, by the report of my friend 
from Missouri; ten cents on that is |20,000,000 more. 
With an overwhelming Treasury, why put twenty mill- 
ions more into it? 

"Ah, the gentleman from Xew York said this morn- 
ing, the tax will not add to the revenue of the Grovern- 
ment, but will destroy the production of an article ; fur- 
thermore, we do not need the revenue. Very well, sir; 
then if you do not want the revenue for building fortifica- 
tions, as the gentleman said, what do you want it for? 

"You want it for the purpose of destroying the pro- 
duction. 

"Now I put it again to the gentlemen, could you by 
law pass an act preventing the production of oleomarga- 
rine in any State of this Union ? A man in the city of 
Boston makes oleomargarine and sells it to a citizen of 
Boston who consumes it in Boston ; and I want to know 
if there is any power in the Congress of the United States 
to prevent that from being done in Massachusetts." 



Hon. JOSEPH WHEELER, 

OF ALABAMA. 




J^^j^?|OSEPII WHEELER, of Wheeler, was born 
the 10th of September, 1836, in Augusta, 
Georgia. He graduated at West Point, and 
received the commission of Lieutenant of 
Dragoons in the United States Army. He resigned when 
Ahibama seceded, and was appointed Lieutenant of Artil- 
lery in the Confederate Army. At the battle of Shiloh 
he commanded an infantry brigade, and at the close of 
the war he commanded the Army Corps of Cavalry of 
the Western Army, having engaged in nearly all of the 
military operations of the South-west. He received a 
joint resolution of thanks from the Confederate Con- 
gress for skill and bravery; and also from the State of 
South Carolina for his defense of Aiken, in that State. 
In 1866 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in 
Louisiana State Seminary, but declined the position. 

He followed the practice of law and cotton planting 
for several years. In 1880 he received the nomination 
for Congress, but his election was contested, and in June 
of 1882 he was deprived of his seat, though he claimed a 
large legal majority. He was elected to the Forty-eighth 
Congress, and also to the Forty-ninth Congress, as a Dem- 

(688) 



EAXDALL L. GIBSON. 689 

ocrat. As a speaker Mr. Wheeler is most eloquent. 
Alabama is proud of him, as she may well be. In the 
debates of Congress he has taken an active part, serving 
on the Committee on Militarv Affairs. 




Hon. RANDALL L GIBSON, 

OF LOUISIANA. 



l^^^bCJAXDALL LEE GIBSON, of m^y Orleans, 
:^MlM ^yjjg \)QYn the lOth of September, 1832, at 
Spring Hill, Kentucky. He received his 
education in Lexington, Kentucky, in Terre 
Bonne Parish, Louisiana, and at Yale College, finally 
graduating in the L!iw Department of the Tulane Univer- 
sity of Louisiana. In 1855 he refused the Secretaryship 
of Legation to Spain. During the early days of the civil 
war he was aid to the Governor of Louisiana; then enter- 
ing the Confederate Army, he served till peace was 
restored. He is both lawyer and planter, and a man who 
is liked best where known best. 

Mr. Gibson holds the honored position of President 
of the Board of Administrators of the Tulane Univer- 
sity of Louisiana. The Second Congressional District 
of Louisiana elected him to the Forty-third Congress, 
but he was refused admission. He was a member of the 
House of Representatives in the Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, 
Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Congresses, and was elected 

42 



690 OUR GREAT MEN. 

to the United States Senate as a Democrat. He took his 
seat in that body the 4th of March, 1883. He succeeded 
the celebrated William Pitt Kellogg, with whose record 
the country is familiar. 

Mr. Gribson has made a fine record in the Senate in 
the few years he has been there, fully keeping up his rep- 
utation as an efficient statesman which he had established 
in the House of Representatives. He is a man of strong 
convictions, and stands up for the right. 



-►»^>^ 



Hon. JOHN J. O'NEILL, 

OF MISSOURI. 




JOHN J. O'NEILL, of St. Louis, was born 
the 25th of June, 1846. He was in the 
Government civil service during the war, 
and then engaged in manufacturing. He 
was a member of the State Legislature of Missouri from 
1872 to 1878. In 1878 he was nominated for Congress by 
the Workingmen's party, but withdrew from the canvass. 
In 1879 he was elected a member of the Municipal As- 
sembly of St. Louis, and re-elected in 1881. He was 
elected to the Forty-eighth and re-elected to the Forty- 
ninth Congress as a Democrat. 

The following is a short speech by Mr. O'Neill on the 
Labor Commission: 

" Mr. Speaker, I want only to say, in so far as the 



JOHN J. NEILL. 691 

question of education is concerned, that it was considered 
fully by the Committee on Labor, and 1 differ as widely 
from my friend from Michigan in this respect as any two 
men can differ on any subject. The gentleman speaks of 
these questions as being essentially different. I can sec 
blending together the two questions of education and 
labor. Where you improve the condition of the laboring 
classes that benefit is felt all the way through every walk 
of society, from the lowest to the highest. But this is not 
the place to discuss that question. When the educational 
bill comes up we may consider it fairly upon its merits ; 
but for the present the only question for our determina- 
tion is whether this House will give to the cause of labor 
a day or not; and I want you gentlemen to keep your 
pledges made to the people, and recollect that it is but a 
few months now before you will go back to them again. 
You can not stand before any intelligent constituency and 
give a reasonable excuse why you would not give to the 
cause of labor, to the reports from the Committee on 
Labor, a day in this House. That is all we ask." 




Hon. LELAND STANFORD. 

OF CALIFORNIA. 




lELAND STANFORD, a member of the 
United States Senate from California, was 
born in Albany County, New York, March 
9th, 1824. He received an academical edu- 
cation and then studied law in Albany, New York, and 
after three years' study he was admitted to practice in 
the Supreme Court of the State of New York in 1849. 
He then went to the North-west, and located in Port 
Washington, Wisconsin, where he practiced his profession 
for four years. He lost his property, including all of his 
law library, in a fire in the spring of 1852, and he then 
went to California, where three of his brothers were 
already located. He at first commenced business in 
Michigan Blufi^s, and in 1856 removed to San Francisco 
and engaged in the mercantile business on a large scale. 
In 1860 he was a Delegate to the National Republican 
Convention in Chicago. He was Governor of California 
from 1861 to 1863. 

He superintended the construction of the Central 
Pacific Railroad over the mountains, and as President of 
that railroad company he received great credit for the 
work, building 530 miles of railroad requiring great engi- 

(692) 



LELAND STANFORD. 693 

neering skill in 293 days. He is also interested in other 
railroads in the Far West, in manufactures and agricult- 
ure, and all that tends to advance the State of his adop- 
tion. He was elected to the United States Senate as a 
Republican, taking his seat the 4th of March, 1885. 
On the subject of railroads Mr. Stanford said: 
"It is pertinent for us to inquire into the wisdom of 
this kind of legislation, assuming that the authority for it 
exists. The right of association is a natural one, and it is 
the duty of the National and State Legislatures to aid 
that natural right ; and that I contend is what legislation 
by the various States providing for the incorporation of 
railroad companies has done. The incorporation is made 
by individual incorporators as much so as a partnership 
between individuals is established by the partners them- 
selves. The character of railroad investment as com- 
pared with others is set forth by the fact that States can 
and do exercise the right of eminent domain in order that 
railroads may be constructed. 

" The State can not exercise this right for the benefit 
of the railroads. It only exercises it because the invest- 
ment is of that peculiarly beneficial character to the pub- 
lic that it may be said to be a public good. The rule is, 
moreover, that the railroad companies must pay individ- 
uals deprived of the control of their property under the 
right of eminent domain whatever may be the value of 
that property. The State pays nothing." 



Hon. JAMES H. BLOUNT, 



OF GEORGIA. 




AMES H. BLOUNT, who represents the 
Sixth Congressional District of Georgia in 
the House of Representatives of the United 
States Congress, was born in Georgia, Sep- 
tember 12th, 1837. His present home is in Macon, 
Georgia. Mr. Blount is a staunch Democrat, and as such 
has been a member of the Forty-third, Forty-fourth, 
Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth and 
Forty-ninth Congresses. In the Forty-ninth Congress he 
was Chairman of the Committee on Post-Offices. 

The following is an extract from a sj^eech by Mr. 
Blount on an appropriation bill to improve the Poto- 
mac flats : 

"Why shall we recklessly go forward, blind to the 
interests of the Government, and expend money as we 
have been doing for the benefit of private persons ? Gen- 
tlemen ask, would we stop the work? Wlij is there 
such a great passion in this House to go on with this 
work that we can not take care of the interests of the 
Government, that we can not stop to inquire about mat- 
ters of which the most dignified and authoritative notice 
comes from the Attorney-General? 

(694) 



JAMES H. BLOUNT. 695 



O 



"Sir, I do trust that this House will not consent to 
the expenditure of another dollar until it shall be fully 
ascertained who are the claimants and what are the rights 
of the Government. If we should, without inquiry, go on 
with this work, and afterward, when the public treasure 
has been expended, it should turn out that there are not 
only Kidwell claims, but canal claims and various others, 
what can we do but hang our heads in shame that wo 
have deliberately gone forward and brought this scandal 
upon the House and upon the Government ? I trust that 
this House, in the interest of its own integrity, will not 
incur the possibility of having this scandal come upon it, 
even though it may be suggested that by taking proper 
precautions we may necessitate the stoppage of the work. 
Is it possible that, with such a wrong threatening us, we 
can not stay the contractors — can not take time to inquire 
into this matter? I trust not." 



& 

m 



Hon. SAMUEL DIBBLE, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 




JAMUEL DIBBLE, of Orangeburg, was 
born the 16th of September, 1837, at 
Charleston, South Carolina. He was edu- 
cated in the schools of Charleston, in 
Bethel, Connecticut, in the College of Charleston, and 
finally entered Wofford College, in Spartanburg, South 
Carolina, where he graduated in 1856. He then taught 
school and studied law, and was admitted to practice in 
1859. He located in Orangeburg, and commenced prac- 
ticing law. The war interrupted his legal pursuits, for 
he volunteered among the first and served till the close 
of the war. In 1877 he was elected a member of the 
State House of Representatives. In 1878 he was elected 
a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of 
South Carolina. He was elected to the Forty-seventh 
Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Hon. 
M. P. O'Connor, but Mr. O'Connor's claim to the election 
was successfully contested, and consequently Mr. Dibble 
lost his seat in that Congress. He was elected to the 
Forty-eighth Congress, and re-elected to the Forty-ninth 
Congress, as a Democrat. 

The following is a short speech by Mr. Dibble on the 
Signal Service: 

(696) 



SAMUEL DIBBLE. 697 

"The Signal Service is necessary, not only in time of 
war but in time of peace, and it is essential that its 
efficiency should be preserved for the benefit of the agri- 
cultural interests of this country. I find that this appro- 
priation bill makes a substantial reduction. Last year 
the appropriation was based on our estimate of a dollar 
a day for commutation of rations at some of the stations, 
and seventy-five cents at others. The book of esti- 
mates submitted has this remark: 

" 'One dollar per man seems to be the minimum price 
at which board can be obtained, and the Chief Signal 
Officer desires to urge this, as he considers the allowance 
of one dollar per day per man to be absolutely necessary.' 
"The amount that is asked in the estimate is |167,000. 
The amount appropriated in the bill is $145,000. The 
amount in this amendment is |155,000, and, as I am 
informed, and I would like to be corrected by the gentle- 
man if I am in error, the amendment proposed by the 
gentleman from Maryland is exactly based upon the rate 
and number of men who are now receiving commutation 
in the Signal Service; two hundred and twenty are 
receiving commutation at one dollar a day, and two hun- 
dred and forty are receiving it at seventy-five cents 
per day. It is exactly maintaining the present status. 
Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to say a word more in 
relation to this matter. This is skilled service. I have 
here the circular which is sent out to every applicant. 
Every man who enters the service is required to contract 
with the Government for five years, and it is desertion 
if he abandons that contract. He is told that he will be 
required to stand an examination fully as strict as the 



698 OUR GREAT MEN. 

civil-service examination for positions in the depart- 
mental service. In addition to that he has to be 
instructed in technical and scientific information ; he has 
to become a scientific expert. At the time of entering 
the service a man is told he will receive a certain rate of 
pay during this period of five years. The law authorizes 
this commutation of rations and of quarters to be fixed 
by the Department, and they have fixed it, and told the 
man what he is to receive." 



~*^=#^ 



Hon. LOUIS St. MARTIN, 

OF LOUISIANA. 




loUIS St. martin, of New Orleans, was 
born in the Parish of St. Charles, in the 
State of Louisiana, in 1820. He received 
his education at St. Mary's College, Mis- 
souri, and at Jefferson College, Louisiana. He entered 
the office of a notary with the intention of studying law, 
and remained there till he received the appointment to a 
vacancy in the postroffice in Xew Orleans. He was elected 
to the State Legislature of Louisiana in 1846, and the 
same year President Polk appointed him Register of the 
United States Land Office for the South-eastern District 
of Louisiana. In 1848 he was again elected to the Legis- 
lature, and in 1850 he was elected to the Thirty-second 
Congress bv the First Congressional District of Louisiana. 



JOHN E. KENNA. 



699 



At the close of his term in Congress he engaged in the 
mercantile business. He was for a time Register of Voters 
for the city of New Orleans. The Democratic party nom- 
inated and elected him, in 1866, to the Thirty-ninth Con- 
gress, and the House of Representatives denied him 
admission, as it claimed that Louisiana was not a State 
in the Union. He was elected to the Forty-first Congress, 
but the election was contested and referred back to the 
people. He was a Delegate to the National Democratic 
Conventions of 1856, 1868, 1876 and 1880. He was a 
member of the Electoral College in 1876 on the Tilden 
ticket. He has for some time occupied a prominent posi- 
tion in the city government of New Orleans. He was 
elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a Democrat. 



— ^=#^^*— 



Hon. JOHN E. KENNA, 

OF WEST VIEGINIA. 




|Tp^^^§||0HN E. KENNA, of Charleston, was born 
'^ the 10th of April, 1848, in Yalcoulon, Vir- 

ginia (now West Virginia). He lived on a 
farm until the breaking out of the late civil 
war, when he entered the Confederate Army as a private, 
serving till the close of the war, when he surrendered at 
Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1865. After the war he attended 
St. Vincent's College, in Wheeling, West Virginia ; then 
read law in Charleston, and in June, 1870, he was admit- 



700 OUR GREAT MEN. 

ted to the Bar. He has since then practiced law in 
Charleston. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney for 
Kanawha County in 1872, and served in that capacity 
four years. In 1875 he was chosen by the Bar in the 
respective counties under statutory j^rovision to hold the 
Circuit Courts of Lincoln and Wayne Counties. He was 
a member of the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth and Forty-sev- 
enth Congresses, and had been elected to the Forty-eighth 
Congress when he was elected to the United States Senate, 
as a Democrat. 

In a speech in the Senate on the subject of interstate 
commerce Mr. Kenna said : 

"The proposition of the Senator fi'om Minnesota, like 
the proposition of every Senator on this floor who urges 
opposition to the amendment, that the railroad should not 
only be allowed, but should be required, to charge reason- 
able rates, involves us in the old geometrical question as 
to the size of a lump of chalk. What constitutes a reason- 
able rate is precisely the thing which the people of this 
country are unwilling to leave to the arbitrary discretion 
of the railroad commission. 

"I do not want to interrupt my friend, the Senator 
from IN'orth Carolina, in his speech, but I do want to 
reiterate the fact that in the amendment of my colleague 
which was adopted yesterday, and Avhich seems to be the 
bone of contention here, the simple principle is announced 
that without interfering with railroad rates — I dislike to 
hear the term ' rates ' mentioned in the line of this dis- 
cussion, because there is no question of rates involved in 
it — without reference to any kind or character whatever 
to interference with the traffic of railroads or their freights, 



JOHN S. BAEBOUK. 701 

it has been deemed by the friends of this measure a reason- 
able limitation that they should not be allowed to charge 
more in gross, more for a shorter haul, even if that shorter 
haul be ten miles, than for a longer haul, even if that 
longer haul be a thousand miles. It is an equalization 
which is essential to restoring to Congress a prerogative 
which has heretofore been usurped by the railroad com- 
panies of this country to control its interstate commerce, 
and to give to the West or any other section the great 
markets of the East, giving to the one to the exclusion of 
the other. That is the real principle involved in it 
after all." 

Hon. JOHN S. BARBOUR, 

OF VIEGINIA. 




|OHN S. BARBOUR, who comes from Wash- 
ington's old home, Alexandria, represents 
well in the United States Congress the 
Eighth Congressional District of Virginia. 
He was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, December 
29th, 1820. He received a classical education at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, and is also a graduate of the Law 
Department of that University. He commenced the prac- 
tice of his profession in his native county. In 1847 he 
was elected to the State Legislature from Culpepper 
County, serving four consecutive sessions. He was elected 
President of the railroad company then known as the 



702 OUR GREAT MEN. 

Orange and Alexandria Railroad Company, holding the 
position till it was changed to the Virginia Midland Rail« 
road Company, of which he was President for nearly thirty 
years. 

He was a member of the Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth 
and Forty-ninth Congresses, to which he was elected as a 
Democrat. 

On the bill for the construction of a bridge over the 
Potomac Mr. Barbour said : 

"So far as the county of Alexandria is concerned it is 
very small and comparatively poor. The population of 
the county is not at all numerous, and they do not see 
why they should tax themselves to build a bridge for 
Washington and for the Grovernment of the United States. 
As I have said, the county is a very small one, with com- 
paratively poor population; and in that county, on the 
other side of the river, the Government itself owns a large 
tract of land — eleven hundred acres of the Arlington 
estate — which it uses as a National cemetery, and where 
it has a signal station. Under these circumstances, is it 
reasonable to expect the people of that little county to 
come up and tax themselves for the construction of a 
bridge to connect that Grovernment property with the city 
of AYashington ? And I want to say, in this connection, 
that the State of Virginia has very little interest in this 
bridge. It would accommodate only a small amount of 
travel from a portion of two or three counties of that State, 
and the construction of the bridge is a matter of little or 
no consequence to Virginia. The great demand for this 
bridge, as I understand, is a jN'ational one. The bridge 
is demanded because the people of this city of Washing- 



SAMUEL B. AfAXEV. 

ton want it. The demand comes nLso bcvauso tl.c peoph- 
of Georgetown are knocking at the door all the time, . 
ing for this accommodation, and the peoi)le of (Je..rgetowi, 
and Washington are under tlie exclusive jurisdiction -.f 
Congress. Tliey have no other body to represent thcni .. 
to act for them; and if Congress does not ext(>nd it.^ .stron- 
and protecting arm over this community, who will?" 



■»H§<:-^<-H- 



Hon. SAMUEL B. MAXEY, 



OF TEXAS. 




JAMUEL BELL MAXEY, of l>aris, was 
born the 30th of March, 1825, in Monnn- 
County, Kentucky, and received his early 
education there. In 1842 he entered West 
Point Military Academy, graduating there in 184<). He 
joined the Seventh Infantry, United States Army, at 
Monterey, Mexico, and served through the ^lexican ^^'a^. 
In 1849 he returned to Kentucky and studied law. He 
was admitted to the Bar in 1850, and seven years later he / 
removed to Texas and ^^racticed law there. In ISOI Kr. 
was elected State Senator but declined, to enter the ('<s»- 
federate Army, where he served until the 20th of y\iiy, 
1865. He then resumed the practice of law. He \\i\n 
elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat/ tjilving 
his seat in March, 1875. He has since been ^^lectcd. 
In some remarks on the education bill Mr. ^Ii^xey said: 



704 OUR GREAT MEN. 

"Mr. President, I think the iiniendment proposed by 
the Senator from Xew York i.s eminently unjust. A 
State, in the exercise of her own judgment, of her own 
sound discretion, arrives at the conclusion that her system 
of education without any outside interference or aid can 
be successfully carried on. That is the opinion of that 
State, and she concludes that she can not alVord to appear 
in the character of a mendicant or an applicant for char- 
ities from other States who are in no respect in better 
condition than that State. 

*' Is there any fairness on this earth in that proposi- 
tion? If, for instance, the State of Texas believes that 
she can conduct her own school system, and she does 

it and T know that tu be the fact that she can conduct 

her own school system after her own fashion, and has 
abundant ability and the will to educate both races, col- 
ored and white, and needs no assistance from anybody 
to carry that out — and therefore prefers that that share 
of the monev which under this bill would go in aid of 
the schools of the State of Texas .'^hall remain in the 
Treasury, has she not that right? And yet if the State 
comes to that conclusion, to exercise her right, her jjeople 
are not to be benefited by that conclusion, but her people 
are to be txixed to raise the amount of money which she 
would have received and which goes to another State; 
and thus this amendment is a penal statute injected into 
this bill. In every sense of the word it seems to me 
unjust." 



